Mumbai: Students appearing for the ongoing Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) board examinations are focussing on their Class 12 examinations instead of worrying about preparation for the engineering entrance tests. Since the entrance tests are usually held in May, they would rather concentrate on the current board exams and worry about the rest later.
Teachers and principals of both the junior and the degree colleges say the number of students opting for engineering courses has witnessed a decline in recent years. Students are increasingly shifting to professional courses after completing their HSC.
Students are increasingly opting for professional courses like Bachelor of Management Studies (BMS), Information Technology (BSc-IT), Arts (BA), Mass Media (BMM) or Banking and Insurance (BBI), instead of technical courses. Teachers say the demand for engineering has reduced due to new courses, which allow students to secure a better-paying job and explore their creativity.
Talking about the students’ focus on HSC board exams instead of preparing for entrance tests like Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), Rajpal Hande, the principal of Mithibai College, said, “Students are keen on professional courses, like BMM and BCom, and we have increasing number of applicants for these courses. Seats for these courses are limited and the cut-off percentage has risen sharply over the years due to the increasing demand.”
In view of the changing trend, the state education department has not given permission to new colleges to start technical courses. A senior officer of the department said, “There are a large number of vacant seats in existing engineering colleges.
As the number of students applying for the courses is decreasing every year, colleges do not have sufficient students. In such a scenario, there is no point in starting new engineering colleges.” Students say they don’t want to take the entrance tests due to the difficulty level. Deepak Mourya, a Class 12 student, said,
“I want to focus on scoring good marks in my ongoing HSC board exams rather than worrying about and taking the pressure of the JEE exam, which will be held in May.” Sanika Dalvi, another student, said, “Board exams are anyway difficult, and we do not want to add to our stress by studying for entrance tests. There are many professional courses and we can secure admissions easily based on our HSC marks.”
