Thiruvananthapuram: Trends emerging after the main round of allotment to Plus One courses was completed in the state syllabus schools indicate that the group with computer science as one of the optional subjects has become the least sought after. However, the other science combination with biology, mathematics, physics and chemistry as optional subjects remained to be the most in demand. Commerce group has also found many takers this year. However, the interesting thing was the emergence of humanities as a favoured option.
The trend during the last decade was that most of the students with high marks did not opt for humanities. This trend has seen a reversal with many students with high marks eagerly opting for humanities group. Higher Secondary School Teachers Association general secretary Sabuji Varghese said the students with high scores preferred to join the science group with biology as an option. As a result, science group with computer science as an option has few takers.
In many schools, only those who did not even get seats in humanities are interested in computer science group. The result was that in case any bright students had to choose computer science, they get transferred to another group. This, in turn, has an impact on the overall pass percentage of the students admitted to the group in that school. This results in an even lesser number of students joining computer science in the school during the subsequent years, Mr Varghese told DC.
Aided Higher Secondary School Teachers Association general secretary S. Manoj said one of the advantages of the group with biology, maths, physics and chemistry was that those who get admitted could write both engineering and medical entrance exams. However, in the case of the group with computer science, maths, physics and chemistry they can write only the engineering entrance exams. Moreover, even if they did not get admissions to medical and engineering courses, they can opt for many degree courses if they studied biology group.
Moreover, for choosing computer science at the undergraduate level, there was no need it at the higher secondary level, Mr Manoj said. Commerce group also has a high demand. However, most surprising factor this year was the sudden interest shown by students with high marks for humanities, he said. Sujeev Jose, English teacher, Government Higher Secondary School, Neduveli, said most students who gave the option for change of group after the main round was for science.
Most of the people who opted for humanities group were those who eyes civil services, Mr Jose said. The trend of computer science losing its charm had been visible during the admissions to CBSE class XI also. Higher ranked students opted for biology-math stream instead of biology computer science. A total of 2, 87,598 seats were to be allotted in the second round, which was the last round of the main allotment.
Of these seats, 2, 86,793 have been allotted to students in the second round of allotment. Some 805 seats remained vacant after this round. They will be filled through supplementary and spot allotments. One of the specialities of this year's admissions was the general education department giving conditional permission to admit visually impaired students in the state's higher secondary and vocational higher secondary schools for science groups. The order was in the wake of a recommendation to this effect by the Kerala Child Rights Commission.
