INVESTIGATION the SIGNIFICANT REDUCTION IN ENGINEERING APPLICANT

Students wishing to study engineering, mathematics and physics at Iranian universities are only graduates of high school mathematics- physics majors. Over the past two decades, there has been a significant reduction in the number of students choosing mathematics-physics major in high schools and, as a result, the number of applicants in the mathematics-physics major of the national university entrance exam has been reduced. This trend has led to a decrease in engineering applicants and a drop in their quality of academic level. Elite high school students do not show much desire to choose mathematics-physics major in high schools due to the numerous employment opportunities of graduates of experimental science major, especially medicine. This, in addition to reducing the number of applicants entering mathematics-physics major, but also has declined the quality of science of applicants entering engineering fields. The Society of Engineering Education of Iran organized a roundtable to investigate the reasons for this situation, and the material that I presented in this roundtable will be discussed in this article.