NEW DELHI: Science and Arts have been students' most preferred choice of subject after Class 10 in the past ten years.
Students opting for Science and Arts streams have increased from 31% in 2012 to above 40% in 2022. While the Commerce stream lagged far behind, with only 14 per cent of students opting for the once most sought-after subject.
While 30.9 lakh students opted for the Arts stream in 2012, it went up to 40 lakh in 2022. The Science stream was chosen by 30.7 lakh students in 2012; it went up to 42 lakh in 2022.
Commerce was chosen by 13.7 lakh students in 2012 and 14.4 lakh students chose the stream in 2022.
Also, what is interesting is that takers for the Science stream were more in south India than in the rest of the country. At the same time, only 2 % of students studied Arts in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana as compared to Tripura (85%), Gujarat (82%), other northern states like Punjab (73%), Rajasthan (71%).
In the same way, the Science stream saw little interest in northern and northeast states like Punjab (13%), Haryana (15%), and Assam (17%) as compared to Andhra Pradesh (76%), Telangana (65%), Tamil Nadu (62%).
The report showed that most students who opted for the Commerce stream were from Karnataka (37 per cent).
"Selection of the particular stream may be due to local literacy rate, parents' educational background, job availability, student movement to foreign universities etc," an education ministry official told the TNIE.
Before 2010 separate streamwise data was not collected. It was in 2012 onwards that the pass percentage was collected, the official said.
The report added that students' choice for vocational courses is also increasing; a commensurate increase in seats at higher education levels may be required.
Other key findings
Between 2012-2022, those who scored above 60 per cent in Class 10 went up from 33 lahks in 2012 to 98 lakh in 2022. Students who scored above 60 per cent in Class 12 also touched 77 lahks in 2022 from 35.9 lakhs in 2012. Girls consistently outperformed boys in these ten years. The margin of girls outperforming widened from 1.7 % in 2012 to 5.1% in 2022. The margin has also consistently been around 8% during 2012-2022. As per the education ministry data, girls performed much better than boys in both Arts and Commerce in 2010 and 2011. Girls scored lesser than boys in these two years. However, as per education ministry data, girls overall have been doing well since 2005 in classes 10 and 12.
