Puducherry: Playing with the future of students

This is a reflection of a recent news item in the Puducherry newspapers that the Department of School Education is planning to stop the pure science stream in the Higher Secondary stream. Now what is this pure science? Interesting though, it simply means students can take Botany, Zoology, Physics and Chemistry as their elective when they seek to do their higher secondary education (or +2 as it is commonly called). Let us set aside whether these are pure science or what the other streams like Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics are "pure" science or not.

It seems the private schools in Puducherry have already done away with this pure science stream. Only a few government schools have this stream now and that too, the government is planning to close. What are the implications for this on the students?

Obviously, this "pure" science stream does not have mathematics. That makes a lot of sense to students who are scared of maths as a subject, though, it is one of the most interesting of the sciences, it is seen, firstly not as science and secondly as very dry and abstract. Let us again avoid the issues as to why lot of children see maths as a scary subject as also science to lot of other children.

Now the students who had the option of taking the pure science has a lot of opportunities which the other streams do not have. One even average or below average students can get into this stream very easily as the most competitors would like a Medical or an Engineering career and for them pure science is not a good choice, because scoring in this is not that easy. Secondly, those students who could opt for Nursing, Paramedical science courses find this as an attractive choice. In Puducherry, this was always the choice of rural and poor students who can get an fairly easy admission to one of the rural government schools or even a couple of urban schools. Now the government stopping this, the future and dreams of a lot of low income students and their parents would be shattered.

Another matter which also is worry is the complete neglect of the social sciences at the higher secondary level. Studying History or Economics is seens a high profile career in leading universities like the Delhi University etc, here in Puducherry these are being wiped out ..

We should definitely start worrying...

Make Science Competitions 2015: New set of students, new projects..

This is the 9th year that I have been working with students from government schools in Puducherry in a programme called Make Science Competitions or "faites de la science" as the French call it..This is part of an international science project programme for children to carry out innovative science experimental or exhibit based projects on any theme they want to carry out.

The programme is being organized by the Pondicherry Science Forum in collaboration with the University of Paris, South 11, Orsay, Paris, France. This is the latest edition and the 9th year..

Nine years is a considerable period for any project ... It is a very challenging project - taking into account, the limited resources that children studying in government schools have, lack of interested teachers (especially in a government job) to guide the children etc.

This year too, I have a variety of projects to handle mostly from rural Pondicherry - from Sellipet, to Karayamputhur to Bahour, Koravallimedu to even schools in the Pondicherry town and Mudaliarpet.. More regarding the project ideas and the work related to this - later..

Now I am busy in video-documenting these projects into small documentary films with their Tamil voice subtitled to English for the Jury of the University of Paris, ORSAY to understand and evaluate..

So, wait.. I will be back shortly with more details regarding the 2015 Edition of the Make Science Competitions ....!!!..