Fewer takers for MBA seats this year

Popular colleges still in demand; lesser-known ones in trouble

The MBA (Masters in Business Administration) degree continues to lose charm in the State. Even this year, thousands of MBA seats in around 130 colleges, under government quota, have gone abegging.

Out of the total 13,753 seats under government quota, only 5,878 were taken by candidates, though things looked promising during the registration process, with 12,368 students registering for the PG entrance test for admission to the course.

It, however, resulted in very few of these students actually taking the seats. The counselling for MBA seats ended on August 12.

Last year, the total number of students who registered for the test – MBA and MCA (Masters in Computer Applications) combined - was a paltry 3,600.

In 20 to 30 colleges, so low was the number of students who took seats that these colleges had to surrender them back to the government. The number of the surrendered seats was 1,385 seats, said a member in the Consortium of PGCET, 2014.

The Consortium consists of representatives from a number of colleges and universities and has been formed under the directions of the government to conduct the test this year.

When asked about the fate of the unfilled seats, the member said, “The respective institutions have been permitted to conduct their own entrance test for students who did not take PGCET, to fill the vacant seats. We will explore all possibilities, before we consider the last resort of surrendering seats back to private managements,” he said.
He said that most of the seats in popular colleges have been filled and most of the vacancies have arisen in lesser known institutions.

“It is all about demand and supply. The MBA programme was very popular earlier and therefore, there were more number of students. In the coming years, we are expecting demand to rise again,” said the member.
 
M K Sridhar, director, Canara Bank School of Management Studies, Bangalore University, was of the opinion that the larger issue was about the high number of institutions that offer poor quality MBA courses.

“There may be thousands of MBA seats on offer. But, how many students would actually take them? Poor quality of courses results in virtually no competition among institutions,” he said.

MCA seats

The condition of MCA is better when compared to MBA. As many as 4,387 students registered themselves for the test. Ultimately, only 2,499 seats were allotted despite the presence of 5,436 seats in the course.

There is still hope of more seats being filled, with the counselling set to end on August 14.