Bhubaneswar, Aug. 3: Colleges offering MBA and MCA degrees have been left staring at plunging enrolment figures, hinting at the fact that seat vacancy in the state's higher education institutions is no more limited to engineering colleges.
With the courses losing sheen in an increasingly job-driven world, as many as 12 colleges offering MCA programmes this year saw less than five seats being filled up, while 17 MBA colleges failed to admit more than 10 students.
The situation is no different in government-run institutes.
In a last ditch attempt at salvaging the situation, the state government sanctioned a second Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) for MBA, MCA and lateral entry for MCA, allowing students to switch over to the course from other streams. The second OJEE is scheduled on August 9.
But, the overall trend is disturbing with only 2,361 of the total 5,525 seats in 71 MBA colleges being occupied leaving more than 2,000 vacancies. Of these, 10 MBA colleges have less than five students enrolling and 18 MCA colleges having less than 10 seats occupied.
The MCA scenario is even more depressing with just 514 admissions against 2,895 seats on the offer in 49 colleges. Barring the state-run institutes such as the Utkal University, Ravenshaw University and the Berhampur University, where most of the seats were taken up, others have been left with a handful of students.
The Keonjhar campus of North Odisha University and the Maharaja Purnachandra College of Baripada have admitted less than five students in their respective MCA departments.
Experts believe that the new and specialised courses in computer education are whittling away the appeal of the traditional MBA and MCA programmes. The number of seats on the offer for these courses has shrunk by nearly half, falling from 4,495 in 2011 to 2,895 in 2015. Of this, almost half number of seats remained vacant this time.
"The MCA graduates, who used to be absorbed as software programmers, are now losing their jobs to BTech students, most of who are grabbing IT jobs. Companies are also recruiting general graduates, who can be trained to handle the same jobs with a much smaller pay package," said Suvendhu Jena, an MCA professor.
A senior OJEE official said the mushrooming of engineering colleges had also taken a toll on the courses. Binod Dash of the Odisha Private Engineering College Association said that at least 15 institutes offering MCA programmes had shut down the course in the past five years.
"Students these days have a wider choice. Students interested in software can also opt for short-term certification programmes such as .Net, Oracle or Cisco, which have good job prospects. The three-year duration of the traditional MBA and MCA courses is also a factor working against them," said Das.
Some of the institutions offering these courses had approached the All India Council for Technical Education, demanding two-year course, but the council turned it down. There is also a growing feeling that MCA syllabus needs to be updated in the changed market scenario.
This makes for a scary scenario with demand for engineering education also witnessing a sharp decline with only 11,393 of around 45,000 seats filling up at the end of allotment seats for BTech courses.
The OJEE sources said that while all seats in the seven government-run engineering colleges had been filled up, there were huge vacancies in 87 private engineering colleges.
"The number of vacant seats could go up as some students are likely to pull out if they don't get the college of their choice," said OJEE chairman Tusharkant Nath.
Private engineering colleges are hoping that at least some of the 10,000 students, who appeared for the Special OJEE held last month, would opt for them.
