Mumbai: The second round of first year junior college (FYJC) admissions on July 20 saw a dip in students opting for the science stream. Going by numbers provided by the state education department, a majority of students have opted for commerce this year.
Principals of top colleges said that students had done their homework before choosing their stream this year. They said that there were 1.61 lakh commerce seats this year, up from last year’s 1.57 lakh. Tushar Desai, principal, Ruparel College which is known for science said, “Till last year, we have seen a lot of cases were students fill in their admission forms for science but the moment the semester begins, they realise that science is not their cup of tea. They later come to us and ask for a change of stream.” Desai said that this year, no such cases occurred as students had thoroughly researched the various streams before zeroing in on the stream of their choice.
Asked about the popularity of commerce among junior college students, Dr N. N. Pandey, principal, Dalmia College, Malad, said, “Commerce is a vast stream! Students have lots of job opportunities after graduation which is not the case with science as it has only engineering or medicine as options. Moreover, commerce is affordable even by middle-class people.” Dalmia College has seen thrice the number of students opting for commerce this year.
Till the second merit list of FYJC, science has seen 27,757 applicants; commerce 49,314; and arts 6,239. Parag Ajagaonkar, principal, N.M. College of Commerce and Economics, said that this year, applications for self-financed courses were 15 times more along with those for technical courses; a first in decades.
