“I don’t mind that there’s only 16%,” she said. “I don’t think there’s anything external.”īirbalsingh, a French and philosophy graduate, said she was “certainly not out there campaigning” for more girls to do physics. “The research generally … just says that’s a natural thing,” she added. There’s a lot of hard maths in there that I think they would rather not do.” When asked why so few girls progressed to physics A-level, despite outperforming boys at GCSE, she said: “I just think they don’t like it. Birbalsingh, who is headteacher of Michaela Community school in Wembley, north-west London, said that only 16% of A-level physics students at her school were girls – lower than the national average of 23%.
