Mangalore May 23 : Now that the SSLC results are out and parents and students are busy in getting admissions (majority have completed) to the best of colleges in the city a change in the trend for preference for different streams has slowly emerged in Mangalore. This year many students have opted for arts stream, which till last year was not finding favour with parents and students. While demand for commerce stream has remained constant, thanks to the new found love of Mangaloreans to go for Chartered Accountancy and MBA, there has been a slight decrease in the clamor for science stream and it is expected to continue in the coming years.
Many reasons are attributed to this new found trend of preference of students. Lionel Aranha, CA and adjunct faculty member at IIM Kozhikode ascribed this new trend to the dwindling job opportunities in the engineering section. “I feel there are not many openings in engineering field and even campus selections have dried up. Even qualified engineers are struggling to find suitable jobs which must be a worrying factor for those who have witnessed their predicament.
In arts and commerce there are new vistas of opening and vast scope of job market. Management is the in thing now and MBA is the buzzword and students and parents must have realized this truth”, says Lionel Aranha.
He also says many students who do engineering land up a job in software companies where their specialization holds no importance as they are required to do only coding and decoding. If at all they are unable to land up in a good job they will have to come back to commerce and spend another five years to complete their MBA, which is nothing but waste of time and money.
Now there is increasing awareness about the commerce stream providing vast opportunities for students as far as job opportunities are concerned. Parents and students have realized the scope Chartered Accountants, Company Secretary and other jobs in the finance sector and more students opt for commerce. Many GSB students have found fascination for CA considering the vast scope it offers.
The demand for arts may also be attributed to the fact that media and humanities offer everlasting scope for jobs. Though there is an insinuation that more students are giving a shot at IAS/IPS cadres and hence opt for arts, it cannot be cited as the reason for more students opting for arts. Lionel says in the absence of proper and qualitative tuitions for IAS/IPS our students will not go for it. “We have a unique trend here where unless we have tuition facility we don’t go for such competitive exams. If someone takes efforts to provide quality coaching class for these competitive exams there will definitely be enough takers for this”, Lionel opines.
Students of undivided Dakshina Kannada district have always shown their preference for science stream as it is the doorway to fulfill the ambitions of parents and students to become engineers and doctors. Students work hard burning mid-night oil in order to get top ranks in CET and other competitive exams to get admissions to best of engineering and medical colleges. There was also a certain amount prestige (until recently) associated with a student taking up science.
Slowly this fondness for science is on the downslide and it really augurs well for other streams like arts and commerce. At least parents and students have taken note of the trend and responded keeping the changed scenario in mind.