EDUCATIONAL SURVEY
WHY IN NEWS ?
- A Union government study has found major region-wise variations in the choice of academic streams at the high school level in the country.
MAJOR FINDINGS OF THE STUDY:
- The top five states where Arts was the popular pick in 2022 were Gujarat, West Bengal, Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan.
- Among Northeast states, in Manipur as many as 68.87 per cent of those who took the Class XII board exams opted for Science.
- These numbers reflect a significant national trend as in 2022, of all Class 12 board exam candidates, as high as 87 per cent belonged to state boards, and 13 per cent were affiliated to Central boards, including CBSE.
- Considered separately, CBSE students accounted for just 10 per cent of the total candidates who registered to take the Class 12 exam across boards.
TOP STATES WHERE SCIENCE STREAM IS POPULAR:
- Science stream students far outnumbered their Arts counterparts in Andhra Pradesh (75.63 per cent); Telangana (64.59 per cent); Tamil Nadu (61.50 per cent); Uttar Pradesh (57.13); and Kerala (44.50 per cent) in the 2021-22 academic session, according to the government study.
- Among Northeast states, in Manipur, as many as 68.87 per cent of those who took the Class XII board exams opted for Science.
- As the list shows, four out of the five large states where Science is the preferred choice among students of class XI-XII are in south India.
STATES WHERE ARTS STREAM IS POPULAR:
- The top five states where Arts was the popular pick in 2022 were Gujarat (81.55 per cent); West Bengal (78.94 per cent); Punjab (72.89 per cent); Haryana (73.76 per cent); and Rajasthan (71.23 per cent), showing a larger geographical spread than Science.
- In the Northeast, Arts was the popular choice in Meghalaya (82.62); Tripura (85.12 per cent); and Nagaland (79.62 per cent).
- While the study captures the preferences of the class of 2022 only, officials in the Ministry of Education said that the numbers are indicative of decades-long trends.
ABOUT COMMERCE STREAM:
- According to the study, the Commerce stream “has stagnated at the same level over the last one decade”, with around 14 per cent students (national average) pursuing the discipline in high school.
- As many as 32 per cent high school students enrolled with the Tamil Nadu state education board in 2022 were pursuing Commerce, 23.54 per cent in Telangana and 13.64 per cent in Andhra Pradesh.
- Telangana and Andhra Pradesh also had 9.85 per cent and 8.54 per cent students signed up with the vocational stream, which has negligible takers in most other states.
SITUATION AT NATIONAL LEVEL :
- There are many indicators which clearly indicate south India’s preference for Science education.
- In the case of Central board students, 49.91 per cent students belonged to Science stream, while of the class of 2022, 16.31 per cent were pursuing Arts.
- First, there are 1,229 All India Council For Technical Education-approved institutions offering engineering and technological courses in the five states of south India (including 9 in Puducherry and 1 in Lakshadweep), with a student intake capacity of 5.11 lakh, according to the council’s 2022-23 handbook.
- This is the highest among all other regions.
- Tamil Nadu alone had 13.8 lakh students pursuing engineering and technical courses in 2022-23, the highest among all states.
- In terms of medical education, of the 596 medical colleges (both public and private) in India, as many as 225, or 37.7 per cent, are in the states of Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, according to a response furnished by the Ministry of Health in the Lok Sabha in April last year.
- Moreover, the JEE advanced scores also provide some clues in this regard.
- For instance, in 2022, IIT Madras zone had 29 candidates in the top 100 category, along with IIT Bombay. Even in 2021, the south zone threw up 27 candidates in this category, right behind IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay zones.
- The zones that represent the eastern and north-eastern Indian states trail much behind.
- In JEE Main 2023, Telangana had the maximum (11) number of students with 100 percentile, followed by Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan, with five each.
RELEVANCE OF THE STUDY CONDUCTED BY GOVERNMENT:
- These numbers reflect a significant national trend as in 2022, of all Class 12 board exam candidates, as high as 87 per cent belonged to state boards, and 13 per cent were affiliated to Central boards, including CBSE.
- Considered separately, CBSE students accounted for just 10 per cent of the total candidates who registered to take the Class 12 exam across boards.
- The study aims to bring equivalence in assessment among various education boards, and looked into many other aspects, such as pass percentages and dropout rates.
- However, the trends on choice of academic streams is the most significant, as parameters such as dropout rates can also be culled out from other sources, such as the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+), while pass percentages of various boards are available publicly.
SYLLABUS: MAINS, CURRENT AFFAIRS
SOURCE: THE INDIAN EXPRESS