ten government arts and science colleges have discontinued their bsc maths course due to poor admissions for 202324 top colleges such as madras christian college and dg vaishnav are struggling to fill maths seats this yeartill last saturday 51 government colleges had enrolled students in single digits and four of them were not able to attract a single student many more colleges may opt to close the bsc maths course and open additional sections in computer or commerce branches next yearthe admission in affiliated colleges of madras university also fell by 50 if the present trend continues experts say there could be a shortage of maths teachers in schools this in turn could affect the performance of students in entrance tests and the state may lose its edge in emerging disciplines as maths plays an important role in logical thinking and reasoningexperts have called for overhauling the syllabus teaching in schools and revamping bsc maths course applicationoriented coursesteachers say the pandemic induced learning gap is the reason for lack of interest in maths in the last two years a rush for engineering computerrelated courses contributed to a decline in interestt v venkateswaran senior scientist at vigyan prasar said a major overhaul of syllabus in schools is needed we need to change the way maths is taught teaching through group activity peer learning should be done coupled with coding data analytics to create interest he saidthe fall in admissions will lead to a dip in quality of maths education in schools he warnedsenior academicians recalled that bsc maths was the most preferred course as there were fewer engineering colleges in the 1970s 1980s the state toppers used to opt for bsc maths and physics it was tough to get admission said professor t r subramaniam director of trs iit classestop institutes like indian institute of science iisc and madras institute of technology mit used to accept bsc math or physics graduates for be btech courses he addedhe also said a fouryear bscbed maths programme will attract more students prospects for students studying maths are much higher with data science students who are interested in maths are pushed to engineering as parents dont see it as a professional course said professor madhavan mukund director chennai mathematicai institutehe said introducing applied maths such as data science actuarial science in bsc maths may be a good ideaprofessors expect the trend to change the present class xii students have attended twoyears of schooling they will be strong in fundamentals of mathematics i expect the trend to change said m pichaimani director ramanujan institute for advanced study in mathematics university of madras