PANJIM: There are going to be less graduates in the pure sciences in the coming year. The growing craze among students to join the engineering, medicine, IT sector, has left less than 50 per cent students passing the Class XII examination, joining the pure sciences for the graduation.
“With more than 50 per cent of the students finishing their HSSC in science opting for engineering and medicine, there are very few who prefer to be pure science graduates despite a demand for researchers,” an official of Goa Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (GBSHSE) told Herald.
This year, around 4787 students from science stream have registered for the HSSC examination beginning from March 1, 2019.
Goa offers 1,230 engineering seats across five colleges. The courses include information technology, computer engineering, and electronics, electrical, mechanical, civil and mining. “Every year almost all the seats go full. Except for mining, the rest seats are full,” an official of Directorate of Technical Education said.
“There are several students who go to Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore for engineering,” an official said adding that Goa has also got its own Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and National Institute of Technology (NIT). “More and more students every year aspire to join engineering,” the official added.
As far as medicine is concerned, Goa medical college and dental college offer 150 MBBS and 40 BDS seats.
This was also evident from the fact that the Central government’s flagship scheme ‘INSPIRE’ witnessed a lukewarm response in Goa.
On an average just one or two students have been availing the annual benefit of INSPIRE (Innovation in science pursuit for inspired research), a programme launched by the Union Department of Science and Technology in 2008, that aims at motivating students to pursue a career in the pure sciences.
“The basic objective of INSPIRE is to communicate to the youth population the excitement of creative pursuit of science and attract talent to the study of science at an early stage with a focus on giving pure science graduates to society,” the official said.
The official stated that the scheme, that provides a fellowship of up to Rs 80,000 per year based on the merit list, sees hardly one or two students availing the benefit annually. “Despite a lot of promotion, there are no takers for the scheme,” an official said.
