Masters in Business Management (MBA), the much sought after course till recently, has found few takers this year.
Even top colleges in the State have failed to attract students for the course.
Information collated from the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) shows 13,594 MBA seats available under government quota. Among them, only 3,473 seats were allotted.
As per KEA statistics, as many as 10,121 MBA seats have remained unfilled. Then KEA transferred the remaining government quota seats to universities. Later, Bangalore University (BU) had conducted its own counselling to fill the remaining seats and managed to fill 80 seats.
“When KEA sent us the details of remaining seats, it was 3,368 in our affiliated colleges. Then we conducted counselling and managed to fill 80 more seats,” said a professor at BU.
According to experts and principals working with management colleges, major reasons for the decline in the demand for MBA seats are changing job profiles of management graduates and top technological institutions in the country introducing MBA courses in recent years.
Speaking to Express, Dr Anand Joshi, former regional director AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education) said, “The job profile of MBA graduates has changed. A few years ago, MBA graduates were getting executive jobs. Now many are taking up jobs like distributing credit cards.”
“Increasing the number of MBA seats in the last two years is another major reason for the decline in demand. We could see the Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) introduced MBA courses and these are naturally the first priority of students,” added Joshi.
The top colleges which found it hard to fill MBA seats in this academic year include Canara Bank School of Management Studies, Acharya Bangalore Business School, Administrative Management College, CMR Centre for Management Studies, CMR Institute of Management Studies, Garden City College of Science and Management Studies, Jyoti Nivas College for Women, Global Institute of Management Science and Sheshadripuram Institute of Management Studies.
Balasubramanya Murthy, Principal of PES Institute of Technology (PESIT) said, “This year, we are surprised to see that 90 per cent of graduates in management courses have not opted for MBA. As per our observation, decline in job opportunities is the main reason.”
“Along with increase in number of IITs, all the IITs have introduced MBA courses and top rankers naturally look at them. Meanwhile, after starting online affiliation process, the AICTE has increased 35 per cent of seats in the last two years and autonomous institutions have got 5,000 more seats,” Joshi said.
Speaking to Express, Anivridha, an MCom student at Bangalore University, said, “I was keen to join MBA. But after discussing with my seniors and parents, I changed my mind. After completion of the course, I will prepare for NET and take up teaching as my profession.”
“The job market for MBA graduates is not that good. Even the salary is less. Instead of spending over `75,000 on an MBA degree, I decided to go with MCom which is financially viable and I am considering continuing my career in the banking sector,” said Srinidhi, another student.