Science degree 'too scary'

As hundreds of thousands of matriculants await their exam results, many will already have made the wrong choice about what to study next year.

Economists and education experts have pointed to the failure of the career counselling system as one of the reasons many post-graduates are unemployed despite their academic achievements.

According to the Higher Education Management Information System database, 837779 students enrolled at public higher education institutions last year.

The biggest proportion, 43.5%, enrolled for humanities courses such as education and social services.

The science, engineering and technology courses, which have been pin-pointed as key sectors, received 28.3% of enrollments, and 28.2% of applications were for business courses.

David Gear, director of the StStithian's Foundation's Thandulwazi Maths and Science Academy Saturday School, said: "The economy lacks skills in almost every field. A better-educated - especially more literate and numerate - population would go a long way towards improving the situation.

"Our school population lags far behind First World norms of literacy and numeracy. A fully computer literate police force would be much more efficient and effective."

Andre Venter, divisional manager of the strategic development department of the United Association of SA union said: "There seems to be a [disparity] between what pupils are taught in school and the real world".

He said students should be prepared for when they leave school, either to study or to work.

University of the Free State rector Jonathan Jansen said the current curriculum lacked "depth, relevance and ambition".

Of the 263559 enrolments at Unisa, only 28536 were for science, engineering or technology-related degrees, whereas 83568 people enrolled for humanities and social sciences courses.

Education and business and management courses received 108288 enrolments.

Of the 13292 University of Zululand enrollments, only 1689 were for science courses.

Unisa's Doreen Gough said the university had received more than 90000 applications for 2011, most of them for economics, management and social sciences courses.

Ashley Stander, of Rhodes University, said that of 6207 applications most were for business-related courses.

The University of Limpopo received 8747 applications. The bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery courses had the biggest numbers of enrollments.

The University of Venda said humanities, education, health sciences, management sciences and environmental sciences ranked highest among the 6830 applicants.

The University of Cape Town's Mologadi Makwela said 22885 undergraduate applications had been received but gave no breakdown of the courses.