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EDUCATION:
SCIENCE
There
are Just Not Enough Jobs
Perhaps
the reasons for the decline have more to do with simple economics than
science. India is said to be among the top three countries as far as scientific
manpower is concerned. But there are just not enough jobs to absorb them.
Science graduates figure among the highest in the unemployment registers
as compared to other disciplines such as engineering, medical and agriculture.
Dinesh Mohan, who teaches mechanical engineering at IIT Delhi, says, "Job
satisfaction in science is declining. Scientific jobs are confined mainly
to teaching or government. Private-sector research and development is
minimal. So the large pool of scientific manpower that we have is dwindling
rapidly."
With too
many unemployed science graduates floating around, there is a natural
gravitation to other streams. Most students now opt for courses in infotech
or management where jobs are easier to find and the pay is better. The
impact is felt more seriously in post-graduate courses where there has
been a drastic fall in numbers. At Delhi University's physics department,
for instance, only 90 of the 200 MSc seats have been filled this year.
Worse, in some colleges, another disturbing trend is being witnessed-almost
a third of the MSc students drop out mid-course.
This declining
trend is not confined to big universities alone. Says Vinod Raina, director
of the Bhopal-based Eklavya-an NGO that runs the Hoshangabad Science Teaching
Programme: "The lack of interest in science starts at the school
level. The teaching format is in the form of a bunch of concepts put together
to be memorised instead of lab-oriented teaching. Science is no longer
interesting." Raina knows what he's talking about. Eklavya has been
training science teachers to teach the subject in a manner that is appealing
to students.
What has
also been a major cause for concern is the dropping standard of science
teachers. Teachers who taught science as if it were poetry are now mere
legends. Instead the combination of poor salaries and ill-equipped labs
has seen good universities lose some of their best professors. P.C. Jai,
head of the department of physics at Delhi University says, "Eighty
per cent of our grants and funds go into paying salaries, about 10 per
cent into maintenance. What can you buy for the teaching lab with the
rest of the money? How can we be fair to the students' expectations?"
Higher education
itself is in turmoil with the UGC cutting back on funds. And since the
grants weren't anywhere near substantial to begin with, the situation
looks pretty bleak. A concerned DST has just launched a series of measures
to halt the declining trend. It recently asked science colleges across
India to send in their demands to improve infrastructure for such courses.
Almost 2,000 colleges replied and the Rs 75 crore the DST set aside for
such improvements will fall far short of expectations. But it is a beginning.
Meanwhile,
to improve the quality of teaching and to boost interest in science, the
UGC plans to identify major scientific labs in 20 cities to link up with
university courses and provide both experienced teachers and facilities
to train students. The UGC will foot the bill for this exercise. And the
DST also plans to harness technology so, among other things, good lectures
in colleges of excellence can be transmitted to less privileged students
in other cities over the Internet or TV through uplinking. "It's
just a beginning. Plenty more needs to be done," admits Ramamurthy.
But the
fear, as with all government activity, is the DST's move will turn out
to be only a halfway house.
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