PSHE Association responds to Girlguiding research on young women's aspirations
The PSHE Association has responded to research on young women’s aspirations released today by our colleagues at Girlguiding which suggests that just 35% of young women believe that women and men have the same chance of succeeding in their chosen jobs.
Boosting career aspirations amongst young women is a priority for the PSHE Association. Over recent years, we have worked with the Government Equalities Office to produce Your Daughter’s Future, a resource for parents to complement PSHE lessons on gender equality and career aspirations, and worked with Siemens to produce a series of lessons for use with key stage 2 pupils on gender equality and aspirations.
Responding to the Girlguiding research, PSHE Association Chief Executive Joe Hayman said:
“These are really worrying figures and show how important it is to redouble our efforts to challenge gender inequality and build aspirations. Girlguiding do excellent work in this area and we are grateful for their consistent support for statutory PSHE education in schools.
We have produced resources for schools to use to help build aspirations amongst girls and young women and will launch further resources later in the year. But these resources will only be taken up if PSHE is actually on the curriculum in schools, which is why we are pressing for statutory status for the subject. This is a clear priority for the Women and Equalities Committee and its chair, Maria Miller, and is also supported by the Children’s Commissioner, the Equality and Human Rights Committee, three Parliamentary select committees, 100 leading organisations including the end violence against women coalition, 91% of parents and 92% of young people.
These figures remind us that if we want to build young people’s aspirations and promote gender equality, we have to work at it. We call on government to provide leadership on this matter and give PSHE education the statutory status it deserves.”
