No takers for Life Sciences degree courses in city

No takers for Life Sciences degree courses in city

HYDERABAD: As admissions into degree colleges in the city draw to a close, there is a significant plunge in the demand and cut-off marks for Life Sciences and Physical Sciences courses. The ‘evergreen' courses of Commerce and Computer Science flourish akin to previous years.

“Even as students opting for commerce courses have 90 per cent marks or more, barely any student has applied to the Life Sciences courses this year. If this scenario persists, the breed of teachers for these courses will become extinct,” said Dr. Jayashree, Principal, Kasturba Gandhi Degree College for Women.

Principals of several degree colleges across the city like Nizam's College, Bhanvan's Vivekananda College, Osmania University College for Women in Koti, and Avanti Degree College said that the demand for the Life Sciences courses had come down drastically. They said that in the previous years both demand and cut-off percentages for these courses were as high as those of the B.Com Honours and B.Com Computers.

“Parents and students are opting for courses that are currently in demand. People should plan for three years ahead and not look at the current trend. There will be a lot of opportunities for those in Life Sciences in the years to come as there is barely any competition today,” said Dr. Jayashree.

Several institutions also said that scholarships provided by the State for students in these courses are getting wasted as there are no takers. “Courses such as Genetics which had cut-off percentage of almost 90 have lost demand this year,” said Y.L. Srinivas, Osmania University College of Women, Koti.

Interestingly, this year B.Sc courses with optionals such as Mathematics, Electronics, Statistics, and Computer Science are in great demand. “Students who do not secure good ranks in EAMCET prefer B.Sc courses with Computer Science in good colleges, to engineering in colleges that are not reputed,” said Dr. Ashok, Principal, Bhavan's Vivekananda College of Science, Humanities and Commerce, Sainikpuri.

Administrative in-charge of Villa Marie College, Indira, said that courses such as Bachelors in Business Administration (BBA), B.A. Mass Communication, and B.Com with optionals such as Foreign Trade are consistently in demand.