The debate over why so few girls take maths-based A-levels descended into “tsar wars” on Friday after the children’s commissioner for England hit out at suggestions that girls found the subject too difficult.
Rachel de Souza told a conference of school leaders in Birmingham that girls were more likely to be put off taking science, technology and maths (Stem) subjects by male-dominated classes and a lack of female role models.
De Souza’s comments come after Katharine Birbalsingh, the government’s social mobility tsar, caused controversy when she told MPs that girls avoided taking physics A-levels because “they don’t like it, there’s a lot of hard maths in there that I think they would rather not do”.
So, the general preponderance, the probability, is that more blokes like hard maths than birds. To which the response is “But some birds like hard maths!”
Which is true but it’s also the same statement, not a response to it.
Anyone get the impression that we’re arguing with a bird here?