New Delhi, Nov. 1: India’s three largest associations of scientists have jointly proposed changes in university science education, seeking a four-year BSc and freedom in subject choices long denied to students across India.

After the four-year BSc programme, students can directly pursue a PhD, or exit after one more year with a master’s degree, under the restructured post-school science education system proposed by the three science academies.

The academies, whose members include the nation’s top scientists and science policy makers, have called for flexibility in course choices to counter the current practice of straitjacketing students into pre-defined subject combinations.

“Biology students should be able to study physics, mathematics students should be able to study humanities,” said Subhash Lakhotia, a professor of biology at the Banaras Hindu University and one of the architects of the proposal.

A joint paper, circulated by the academies to universities, research institutions, and several arms of the government, analyses the drawbacks of the existing university science education system and pitches options for its restructuring.

But some academy fellows who helped create the document are worried about the lack of response from the university sector. “For one of the meetings to discuss these proposals, the three academies tried very, very hard to get senior officials from the UGC (University Grants Commission), but no one turned up from the UGC,” said a senior scientist, who requested not to be named.

The UGC — India’s higher education regulator — needs to approve every degree offered by institutions that it has recognised.

“The academies don’t have physical power, but they have moral authority and can advise and influence,” said Gautam Desiraju, professor of chemistry at Hyderabad University and a fellow of all three academies.

“There is a realisation that there’s something seriously wrong. We’re not producing the quality of scientists we need,” Lakhotia said. “But the (demand for) change will have to come from within (universities),” he told The Telegraph.

In their paper, the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi, the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, and the National Academy of Sciences, Allahabad, have warned that just increasing investments in science education will not improve quality.

The current BSc is compartmentalised and forces students to pick rigid subject combinations, or even specialisations, in the first-year itself. Scientists believe this practice prevents students from acquiring strong foundations in the core sciences.

In the proposed BSc, or BS, programme, students would have to study mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and earth sciences, computers, and humanities during the first two years. They would be able to pick a subject for specialisation in the third and fourth years, but would have to choose electives for at least 15 per cent of course credits from outside their own area.

Students who complete such a programme could directly join PhD or opt out after one year with a master’s, but the academies believe students who complete such a 4-year course would stand a better chance of employment than existing BSc graduates.

The academies have proposed that the four-year programmes should be initially introduced only in institutions with good track records of undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and research. But some researchers caution that improving university science education won’t address another key problem that Indian science faces — the brain drain of PhDs.

“Most PhDs go abroad for post-doctoral fellowships,” Desiraju told The Telegraph. “There is social and peer pressure to do post-doctoral work outside India. Students even do post-doctoral work in areas not connected with their PhDs.”

“A restructuring won’t address this problem,” he said.