chennai monday is the last day of the class 12 board exams for lakhs of students in the state but for most of those yet to write the last exam computer science it seems like the vacation has already begun students and teachers said little importance was given to the computer science exam because marks secured in it were not given weightage for college admissions only marks in mathematics physics and chemistry are considered for the engineering cutoff while scores in physics chemistry and biology are considered for the medical cutoff even admission to bsc computer science and bachelor in computer applications course is based on the score in core science pcm scores subjects being the last exam its natural for students to lose steam especially when there are a couple of study holidays in between we are trying to motivate them by saying that a good overall score will always look good on their mark sheet and will be better for higher studies said a teacher of computer science in a leading matriculation school in the city teachers said most students opted for computer science as the fourth subject because they could concentrate on securing full marks in maths physics and chemistry students said they saw no merit in studying for the exam because the syllabus was outdated and had little relevance to that taught in college we found that only c language taught for the practicals is useful for higher education the theory deals with a lot of outdated text editing software like lotus said harish swaminathan who graduated with a btech in computer science engineering from anna university in 2012 the syllabus has not been revised in seven years academics said the subject may not have been given much importance earlier because schools and homes lacked sufficient infrastructure now with free laptops being given by the government to higher secondary students most homes having a personal computer and every school worth its salt housing a reasonably good computer lab the excuse is no longer valid p vishnu charan correspondent of shree niketan matriculation higher secondary school suggests including computer science marks for admission to at least information technology and computer science courses in colleges to change the attitude of students towards the subject currently the it industry recruits the largest chunk of students its only fair to give adequate importance to it in school so we can prepare children for employability later on