Scientific temper in Himachal schools erodes

     
By: Ravinder Makhaik
dps21

Dalhousie Public School. File photo.

Shimla: Keeping aside Himachal Education Board (HPEB) having declared a 70 percent pass result in class XII science, what has caused concern is that number of students opting for science studies beyond 10th class is fast dropping.

Out of the 16,107 students who appeared for the Himachal board exam in science subjects for the 2008-09 session, as many as 11,260 have passed, the result declared on Saturday showed. Another 2164 were declared to have obtained a compartment and the remaining had failed to make the grades.

Chaman Lal Gupta, chairman HPEB, who claimed that the hill board was first of the block in declaring results, however, showed concern that the number of students taking the science plus two board examination was dropping.

Gupta, who was chairman of the board five years ago also said, “in my earlier tenure as many as 27,000 students science students had appeared for the class XII science exam, last year about 18,000 and this year a little over 16,000 students appeared for it.”

Though the state government spends about that Rs 1100 crore (about 1/8 of the state budget) on education and has spread schools into every nook and corner but most funds go towards meeting salary and administrative expenditure.

“Poor infrastructure for conducting science classes, not enough qualified staff deployed to teach the curriculum, frequent transfers are some of the reasons that are responsible for students losing interest in science subjects, says Rajesh Kumar, a former teacher.

Unless more students are encouraged to take up science subjects, the talent pool to feed the numerous new institutions like medical colleges and technical institutions coming will only deplete, he said.

     

2 Responses to Scientific temper in Himachal schools erodes

  1.  Abhishek   April 27, 2009 at 8:02 am

    Reasons stated herein are very true. But it may affect results and not enrolment.

    Major cause of less enrolment appears to be future prospects. 5-6 years back most of the students had only goal of doing B.Ed and getting placed as a science teacher somewhere (easy way out) the thing which is now passe.

    If somebody dared to think beyond they have no options but venture out of the state. Where they face tough competition from their counter parts.

    Quality of higher education (beyond 12th and of course above B.Ed) needs to be looked into. Above all school & board authorities must come forward to guide pupils about array of options i.e. engineering, IT, bio-tech, pharma, research, etc and not only B.Ed. which gradually will create the desired talent pool to encourage private sector also to come forward in this direction.

    Reply
  2.  kamal   April 29, 2009 at 2:01 pm

    how does passing percentage in science stream imply scientific tmpr !!!
    lol

    Reply

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