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UP Board - Vocational options find a few takers
Traditional subjects in UP Board Exams 2020 continue to attract lakhs of students both at the high school and intermediate level, while many vocational subjects
Traditional subjects in UP Board Exams 2020 continue to attract lakhs of students both at the high school and intermediate level, while many vocational subjects are struggling to attract even a handful of them, a subject-wise break-up of data reveals.
If one goes through the count of students and their choice of subjects, many may even question the rationale of offering so many options. However, board officials maintain that the aim of providing a wide variety of subjects is to provide enough options to students.
“It is true that many subjects have failed to attract students at both the high school and intermediate level. But we cannot stop providing the options to students merely on this ground. We want to give students the opportunity to choose, even if there is a single student wanting to opt for any of these subjects,” UP Board Secretary Neena Srivastava said.
At the high school level, records show that Hindi has 30,02,287 students, English has 27,93,693, Mathematics has 20,81,766, Science has 30,13,586 while Social Science has 30,05,148 students opting for the subjects. Board records show that vocational subjects like retail trading, security and automobiles have failed to attract even a single student, while only a single student has opted for Information Technology/ Information Technology enabled services, in the state.
At the intermediate level, traditional subjects rule the roost with General Hindi finding 1,66,88,137 takers, English having 22,64,076 students, Physics has 14,85,938, Chemistry being opted by 14,86,039 and Biology finding 8,83,315 students. However, vocational subjects like retail trading, security, mobile repairing, tourism and hospitality, Information Technology/ Information Technology enabled services, domestic appliance repair and maintenance, artificial limb and organ technique and ceramics have failed to find even a single taker.
A few others have managed to attract a few students. Five students in metal craft moulding and hand-block printing, 15 in embroidery and 11 in shorthand and typing, and all these students are girls. Others like bee-keeping have 15, Anthropology has 17 and Insurance Policy has 33, Sericulture has 76, Dairy Technology has 78 and Dancing has 8 students opting them.
Many languages too have failed to attract students at the intermediate and high school level. In Class 12, Gujarati and Marathi have three students each, Oriya has five, Nepali has six, Telugu has 11 with Bangla (Bengali) attracting just 39 students.
In Class 10, Oriya and Nepali have two each, Tamil has four, Bangla (Bengali) has 12 and Marathi has 14 students.
The starkness of the dismal number of students opting for these subjects hits hard even more when one takes into account that a total of 56,07,118 students are appearing in UP Board 2020 high school and intermediate examinations.
Board officials concede that most subjects that have failed to attract students, had also fared poorly last year.
