Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 18 April 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills

The Future of STEM in Irish Education: Discussion (Resumed)

Professor Sarah McCormack:

Not necessarily. I do not think so. For these numbers, the women who choose to do engineering have come in with high grades. They are committed to the subject. We are trying to increase the number of women coming in. The men who are coming in do not have points as high as the women. That is where the difference in grades is coming out at the end. We are trying to encourage more women in. They do not have to have the top grades to come in but those women are thinking in some ways that they are not able to do engineering because they do not have very high grades. We want to show the men coming in with certain grades and that if women came in with the same grades, they would have the same aptitude to do these subjects.