§ Mrs. Millie Millerasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he is in a position to report how women have taken advantage of the provisions made by his Department in education and training as well as literacy, in view of the emphasis on these subjects recommended for the United Nations Decade for Women.
§ Mr. Gerry FowlerOpportunities to take advantage of education facilities are open equally to men and women. Women represented about 60 per cent. of the enrolment for a large sector of adult education classes in 1974, the latest year for which I have statistics. In further education establishments, principally meeting the needs of the 16 to 19 age group, there were 852,800 women students, some 46 per cent. of the total. Women comprise 35 per cent. of those adults who have responded to the adult literacy campaign. The trend has been for the proportion of women to men in the overall student total to rise over the last few years.