Many teenage girls do not have access to engineering subjects or construction studies in school

Transition-year student Kim Woolfson, from Mount Temple Secondary School, Malahide, launching I Wish’s 2021 survey of female students’ attitudes to STEM and I Wish 2022, the  global STEM event for female secondary school students, which will be held virtually on February 10, 2022. Registrations are open at iwish.ie/register. Picture:Naoise Culhane 

Many teenage girls interested in pursuing a career in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) do not have access to engineering subjects in school.

I Wish, an initiative that encourages young women into STEM, has called for a rethink of how school subjects are presented, as it publishes the results of its annual survey. The study, the largest of its kind in Ireland, found that 78% of the  girls who took part believed the lack of subject choice was a gender-specific barrier to a career in STEM. More than half of those surveyed said they were interested in engineering and in construction studies, but did not have access to the subject in school.