The interest among students to pursue an undergraduate programme in business administration and computer applications seems dwindling.
Over 1,150 seats for the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) course were remaining vacant at the last lap of the centralised online allotment process of the Mahatma Gandhi University for the new academic year.
For the Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA) course, 857 seats had no takers. The self-financing courses led the table of undergraduate courses, which showed a decline in popularity among the young aspirants.
Of the 1,150 vacant seats for BBA, 698 were in the general category. The popularity of the B.Com Model II Computer Applications course dipped as over 1,300 seats were remaining vacant.
Attributing the decline in demand for the business administration course to the poorly designed curriculum, G. Vijayaraghavan, technocrat and founder-CEO of Technopark, said that these self-financing programmes were over-hyped and students realised over a period that they had made a mistake by choosing it. “It’s like taking up a B.Tech. in Information Technology or Biotechnology. One should not have specialisation at that level,” he said.
‘Redesign courses’
P.S. Sreejith, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the Cochin University of Science and Technology, pointed out that students often go for the BCA course, if they fail to get admission for a B.Tech. course for which seats are available in plenty. “Doing a BCA course alone would not land you in a job. They have to complete MCA too to brighten their prospects. The varsities need to redesign self-financing courses launched without much study and thought process,” he said.
Other courses for which seats were remaining vacant under the general category include B. Com Model I Computer Applications (278); B. Com Model I Finance and Taxation (234); B. Com Model II Marketing (167); B. Com Model I Co-operation (124); and Model I Travel and Tourism (104).
