60% seats in MBA, MCA may lie vacant

Over 7,600 turned up for verification on Day 1

BH Ramakishna

Not just engineering, but the scenario with regard to MBA and MCA courses in the state too offers no encouragement. Top officials of Higher Education Council have been a bit worried over steep fall in admissions through ICET Counselling. As per the official statistics, it is expected more than 60 percent of MBA and MCA seats may remain vacant this year as well.

The certificate verification of ICET qualifiers has started on Tuesday and at the end of first day, as many as 7,664 candidates have turned up for verification. The process has started on a smooth note with all the 32 Helpline centres functioning across the state.

The verification will go on till September 15 and registration of web options would be allowed between September 16 to 21 and the allotment of seats will be done on September 23. The classes are likely to begin before the month-end. The special category candidates can get their certificates verified up to 14 at Sanketika Vidya Bhavan, Masab Tank in Hyderabad, according to P Raghunath, Chief Camp Officer of Counseling.

Last year, while the total number of students joined in MBA and MCA streams was just 63,000 of total available seats of 1,57,750. This year it may not even touch 60,000 in both the disciplines, according to an estimate of top officials. As many as 166 engineering colleges that have been offering the MBA courses for the last few years have withdrawn the course this year; similarly, more than half of the colleges offering MCA course have also shut down the shop in 2013.

This year, nearly 1,28,889 candidates have taken the ICET held on May 17 and out of them, nearly a lakh qualified. This means, there are more seats and less qualifiers and even among them, not even 60% are evincing interest to join.

“Except a few colleges, the rest of the private institutions have become degree-churning mills. The engineering graduates have been taking admission in MBA to add another degree which they felt useful to get a job. They don’t have any seriousness to do the course. Those who want to pursue MBA seriously do not prefer these colleges but try hard for admission into prominent colleges. So, at the end, the joining have been on the decline each passing year” a top official of Higher Education Council told The Hans India.

Lack of skilled faculty is also proving to be bane for MCA and MBA courses. Almost 90% colleges have neither proper faculty nor good placement record, he added. Most of the colleges have been thriving on reimbursement facility given by the government. Unless this is discouraged, things will not improve, officials felt.

Mean while in the Vijayawada as many as 508 candidates have gone through the process of certificate verification on the day one. Over 258 candidates have appeared in Andhra Loyola College and 250 candidates appeared in the SRR College. According to the Regional Coordinator of the ICET, Vijay Ratnam, around 7,268 candidates in the district have applied for the test, out of which more than 600 candidates failed to attend.