Overview
Physics is a strategically important subject but it is becoming vulnerable in schools and universities.
Over the last 15 years, concerns have grown about the number of students on physics-based courses. These include:
- the number of A-level entries for physics has fallen by over a third, while most physics undergraduates are being drawn from the upper end of the socio-economic scale;
- the number of girls doing physics has also fallen from its already low starting point;
- the number of physics undergraduates has not increased in line with the general expansion in HE numbers;
- about a third of university physics departments in the UK have closed.
In 2005, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) agreed to work with a group of organisations to support physics and other strategically important and vulnerable subjects.
