Six out of ten pupils in upper secondary education attend programs for general studies, the majority of them are women. In vocational education program the male majority is made more visible by looking at trainees, where only three out of ten are women.
About 200 200 pupils attended upper secondary school as of October 1st 2015. This number has been stable over the last years. 65 per cent of them attended programs for general studies. Most of them read Specialization in general studies, a program with a student amount of 52 per cent. Sports and physical studies, Electricity and electronics, Healthcare, childhood and youth development and Technical and industrial production are also popular programs.
Vocational education programs male dominated
There are clear differences in how men and women distribute in the different education programs this year.
58 per cent of the pupils attending vocational education programs are men. Many of the vocational education programs are strongly represented by one gender. While Building and construction got a male share of 94 per cent, the same amount is 15 per cent for Healthcare, childhood and youth development. Electricity and electronics and technical and industrial production are also clearly male dominated.
This difference between genders is also made visible through the number of trainees in upper secondary school. Out of 39 872 and 2023 trainees and apprentices as of October 1st 2015, only 29 per cent were women. Most of the women attend Health, childhood and youth development, Design, arts and crafts or Service and transport studies. The amount of trainees and apprentices among immigrants is slowly increasing the last couple of years. This goes for both genders.
Programs for general studies female dominated
Specialization in general studies, Sports and physical studies and Music, dance and drama are all programs for general studies. Unlike the vocational education programs, these programs are female dominated with an amount of 56 per cent women.
Sports and physical studies is the only program with a higher amount of men than women, while one out of three students attending Music, dance and drama are women. How genders distribute is more or less stable from year to year, but we do see a small increase in the share of women attending specialization in general studies the last four years.
About 10 per cent of the pupils attend programs for general studies in private schools. The same amount for vocational education programs is 5 per cent. This amount is stable.
Source: SSB / Norway Today