There appears to be a lull this admission season in some science departments in Bangalore University (BU). The departments, which put up their omnibus merit list for postgraduate (PG) admissions on Tuesday, have reported a decline in the number of applications for courses, a trend not seen in recent years.
Puzzled faculty members are citing increasing number of private universities offering PG courses and low enrolments in B.Sc. courses as the reasons for the decline in number of applicants.
For example, BU’s Physics Department used to get at least 800 applications each year, with the number having crossed 1,000 last year, for 220 seats (including in affiliated colleges to be filled via BU).
This year, that number is 720. This includes students who wish to pursue chemistry and mathematics but apply for physics as a backup.
“Most students are opting for professional courses, resulting in low enrolments to B.Sc. courses,” said Ramakrishna Damle, chairperson of the Physics Department. This, he says, also resulted in deterioration in the quality of students. “In addition, an MSc in Physics is a tough course, so the end percentage may not be as good as in other courses,” he added.
The Mathematics Department got only 453 applications for 60 seats, from the usual 600 to 700. A big change this year has been the shifting of the department from the Central College campus to the Jnana Bharathi (JB) campus. “Not many female students want to take admissions in the JB campus due to the distance,” a faculty member pointed out.
For subjects such as Electronic Science, there have been a mere 50 applications for 30 seats. J. T. Devaraju, chairperson of the department said last year’s number was marginally better (75), but still lower than previous years’ numbers of over 100 applications.
“With the cut-off for engineering seats under the Common Entrance Test going down, the number of students opting for B.Sc. has reduced. Another factor is employment opportunities being offered to B.Sc. students that offer them an opportunity to pursue a Masters simultaneously,” he added.
Similar is the case with once-popular subjects like Computer Applications and Bio-technology, BU professors say. However, Vice-Chancellor B. Thimme Gowda said BU is able to attract enough students for most courses. “It is only for rare courses like Women’s Studies, Molecular Biology, Rural Development and Geology that numbers are low,” he said.
