Candidates seeking admission to technical courses go through document verification. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, July 28: The craze for technical courses has taken a toll on pure sciences. The trend, which began a few years ago, appears to have assumed alarming proportions now.

Even after two rounds of admission followed by spot admissions on Tuesday, a sizeable number of science seats in premier degree colleges of the capital are still lying vacant.

In BJB (Autonomous) College, 26 out of 102 seats in physics-chemistry-mathematics (PCM) combination and eight out of 64 seats in chemistry-botany-zoology (CBZ) combination are yet to be filled up.

“Everything is market-driven. Technical courses offer a better scope for employment. So, many students who have opted for science subjects at the undergraduate level are still looking for a seat in a good engineering college. Those, who fail to make it, keep striving towards that goal,” said Dusmanta Sahu, principal of BJB (Autonomous) College.

Similar is the story at College of Basic Science, Ramadevi Women (Autonomous) College and Maharishi College. Of the total 224 seats available in College of Basic Science, 64 are lying vacant. Of these, 19 are in PCM, 16 in microbiology, 10 in biotechnology, nine in computer science and eight in IT.

At Ramadevi, about 18 seats in PCM and CBZ have not been filled up, while at Maharishi, there are 28 vacancies left in the two categories.

R.N. Panda, principal of Institute of Higher Secondary Education, a city-based Plus Two science college, said a huge reason behind seats remaining vacant was that most students aim to get into national institutes and reject the local colleges as “sub-standard”.

“The government colleges offering pure science courses are not well-equipped and, so, do not attract students. Another reason is that many candidates do not have a proper understanding of the e-admission procedure. I came across an applicant, who had scored 70 per cent marks and had mentioned only two leading colleges in his list of choices. But, he did not get a call from either of them and, as a result, remained out of the admission process,” said Panda.

A science lecturer of a government-run college in the capital said: “People think those who study pure sciences are the ones that cannot get admission into engineering or medical colleges. Most of them choose this subject at the Plus Two level due to parental pressure. They want their children to get jobs as soon as they finish college. Those who are unable to cope, migrate to either arts or commerce streams or even take up professional courses,” the lecturer said.