The Girls’ School Association has warned that Labour’s plan to charge VAT on private school fees in January could lead to fewer women growing up to have careers in male-dominated industries such as sports or physics. Beth Probert, 27, is an award-winning astrophysicist and PhD researcher at the University of Strathclyde’s Applied Space Technology Laboratory in Glasgow. Here she explains why this isn’t the case.
I grew up in the countryside near Alice Holt forest in Hampshire in the south of England. That was lucky because it’s one of the darkest regions in the South. When I was a child, I spent a lot of time outside, just lying down, and staring at the stars. I was completely mesmerised by all these little lights in the sky. I’ve always been a bookworm, so I’d go and get lots of encyclopedia books to learn as much about the sky as possible. I remember giving myself minor existential crises about how big the universe was and how small we were, and just trying to wrap my child brain around that idea. We’re a speck of dust in the universe. I’ve always been fascinated.
I went to a state school, and I like to think I’m doing pretty well for myself as a result. I went to Weydon School in Farnham, which is a mixed-gender science specialist school, where I had a lot of exposure to science and we had specialist labs that we received funding for. Today, I’m a PhD researcher with a background in software engineering, looking at satellite communications and automating collision avoidance between satellites.
Personally, having a state school education enabled me to experience diversity in broader terms than just gender, but also in background and upbringing in socioeconomic terms, which helped me develop a stronger sense of empathy and understanding for people in circumstances different to me. I made friends with people from a much more diverse set of backgrounds. I’ve carried that with me today and the experiences I had at school have shaped me to become someone who is very passionate about diversity and inclusion in STEM.
Even though my school was a specialist school for science, I definitely faced some barriers because I was a girl. I remember telling one of my teachers that I loved physics. He said: “You’d make a really great physics teacher. There’s a shortage of women physics teachers. You should think about going into teaching.” I never had any interest in teaching. I wanted to be a scientist. But I was never encouraged to consider it.
But that didn’t matter. Instead, the biggest inspiration for me was my upbringing. I grew up in a female-only household. My mum is one of the strongest women I know, and she’s known about my love of space and science pretty much since I was born. She has only ever encouraged me, pushed me and challenged me to go that bit further and to chase my ambition. She’s never tried to box me into anything or tell me I should aim for less. Growing up I had never seen women be limited. I think really helped me push ahead.
At university, I studied astrophysics at Bath. There were around 120 people on the course, and around 20 were girls. Barely any of them went to a private school. A friend who did go to private school actually went there on a scholarship. Private education doesn’t dominate the field.
Regardless of whether you send your child to a girls’ private school or a mixed-state school, I think there is a bigger problem that needs addressing. Teachers have a huge role to play in encouraging girls to pursue their dreams, whatever school they teach at.
There’s so much research that shows children as young as eight have already learned gender stereotypes about what girls and boys can and can’t do. We need to start even younger than secondary school, which is probably where I had my first real exposure to learning science. If we want more girls in physics, we need to be showing girls in primary school that they are capable of anything.
There was another piece of research done recently by WISE that showed that in STEM job advertisements, boys relate more to verbs. Such as “You will be programming,” or “You will be problem-solving”.
On the other hand, girls respond more to adjectives that describe a person: “You are a logical thinker” or “You are creative.” To get more girls into science, rather than sending them to a private school, we need to stop talking about what scientists do in terms of complex equations and instead ask: What is a scientist like? How does a scientist think? I think a lot of girls don’t realise that they have the right personality for the job.
Firstly, you have to be creative to find unique solutions. You need to be resilient because science is all about trying and failing. We assume scientists are introverted and like to work alone, but in reality, to be a good scientist you need to be a really strong communicator. You need to be able to work well with others. The programming skills can be learnt later.
There is a stereotype that state schools are limiting. However, the majority of students in the UK still go to state schools and succeed. I don’t regret going to my state school, and I haven’t achieved any less for it.
This post was originally published on here
