Maths enrolments are bouncing back in Victoria after a pandemic-era slump when almost 2000 VCE students opted out of the subject, but fewer girls are returning than boys.
Overall numbers of students taking maths are growing with the student population. But the proportion of girls taking any VCE maths subject has eased since 2021, falling from 50.1 per cent of all students to 48.6 per cent this year.
This year, there are more boys in general maths than girls – a subject in which females traditionally outnumber males – sparking concern among experts that efforts to bolster the number of girls entering maths-based career pathways are wobbling.
Girls dominate several VCE science subjects – biology, psychology, health and human development – but gender parity has been a stubborn challenge for educators for decades in specialist and maths methods, physics and systems engineering.
“At that specialist maths level, there has always been that gender gap, but I am concerned that that gender gap seems to be flowing through to the other subjects as well, such as general maths,” said Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute director Tim Marchant.
“If you think of it as a pipeline, you really need a pipeline of gender equality at a high school level to have a chance of having gender equality in maths-focused jobs.
“It’s a very complex problem and there isn’t one solution or one cause; some of the reasons are the lack of role models, confidence in mathematics, societal expectations about what young women do.”
Participation in all maths subjects in Victoria fell from 51,130 enrolments in 2021 to 49,222 the following year. In 2023, enrolments nationwide in intermediate maths subjects such as maths methods fell to a historical low of 16.8 per cent of all senior secondary students.
In 2026, enrolments in all four year 12 maths subjects had rebounded to pre-COVID levels.
Greg Ashman, maths researcher and deputy principal at Ballarat Clarendon College, said the dip post-COVID among all students was probably because they found online learning challenging during the pandemic.
“Maths is very hierarchical, and the next bit builds on the last bit. If you haven’t had optimal teaching because you’ve been instructed online, then these subjects feel harder and fewer students go into them,” he said.
“What the figures seem to suggest is that happened, but now we’re recovering from it – that’s obviously a very positive thing.”
In Victoria, the number of girls doing maths methods fell from 7009 in 2021 to 6177 in 2023. Since then, the number of girls in methods this year has rebounded to 7218 students, 3 per cent higher than in 2021. While experts point to this as a positive sign, boys’ enrolments are now more than 10 per cent higher than they were over the same time.
Year 12 student Krisha Parikh is bucking the trend by tackling general and specialist maths this year at Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School, after finishing methods in 2025.
Parikh said she learnt to love maths from her data analyst dad.
“He tried to help me refine my skills and actually become more confident in math and I just developed a love from there,” she said.
Parikh said she has seen the real-world application of maths skills, including through an uncle who runs a successful business and another who works for a major consulting firm.
“I think that kind of influenced it as well,” she said. “I’m a bit of a math enthusiast.”
Ashman said the disproportionate intake of males studying maths overall could be because girls often outperform boys in subjects that require writing skills.
“If you’re a young man and you see the people around you are better than you at writing, but you can hold your own when it comes to maths, you might start to identify more as a maths person,” he said.
“If you layer in societal stereotypes about what subjects men and women are supposed to be good at, you can see why there would be a slightly disproportionate uptake.”
However, girls are outnumbering boys in VCE foundation maths, a new subject designed to equip students to tackle numeracy problems encountered in everyday life. The subject is made up of 54 per cent female students and has been growing since its addition to the curriculum as a unit four subject in 2023.
Enrolment numbers are also rising in the VCE VM subject numeracy, which is unscored and was introduced in 2023, with 4087 girls and 5539 boys this year.
“More Victorian students than ever are studying maths, with enrolment growth across every VCE mathematics subject – general mathematics remains the clear favourite, and foundation mathematics has gone from strength to strength since we introduced it in 2023,” a Victorian government spokesperson said.
“Gender differences in subject choice are not uniform – that’s true across the curriculum, not just maths – and our job is to make sure every student, whatever they choose, gets the support to succeed.”
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