In a landmark decision, Master of Computer Application (MCA) will henceforth be a two-year programme—the reduction of one year will largely benefit students and colleges. Classrooms meant for the three-year course will be deployed for other courses and additional faculty could be posted for newer programmes.

The decision will be put into effect from the coming academic season. The All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), which worked with the University Grants Commission to cut the tenure of the three-year MCA course, said the move was prompted by the fact that the number of students coming in from unrelated streams such as commerce, arts and basic sciences had fallen. The decision will see neither the course content being reduced nor will it affect programme hours though.

The three-year programme was started in the late 1990s to cater to the large demand from the IT industry that lapped up not only BTech computer science and IT graduates, but even pass-outs from courses such as BSc (information technology), BSc (computer science) and BCA (bachelors in computer application).

When the industry demand was still not met, MCA was introduced to allow just about anyone to switch to the computer science stream. Therefore, students from pure sciences and those from commerce and arts with mathematics as a subject also signed up to learn the basics of coding in the first year and then move on to the advanced level in the second. Meanwhile, those from courses such as BSc (IT) or BCA or BSc (CS) got into MCA under the lateral entry system directly into the second year.

“But in the last four to five years, the demand for people from the IT industry has fallen; they are recruiting very few people even from BTech computer science and IT. So, there is no admission taking place in the first year of MCA from BSc physics or chemistry or from the BCom course in almost all the colleges in the country,” said AICTE chairman Anil Sahasrabudhe.

Currently, MCA courses largely see students with a computer science background join in. These are students who do not need the introductory first year. “So we are repeatedly getting pleas from the colleges that all admissions are in the second year, but because MCA is theoretically a three-year course, colleges have to maintain classrooms and faculty as per the three-year programme. We hence spoke to UGC and they understood the problem and allowed us to make this a twoyear programme with inputs of students from BSc IT, CS and BCA,” said Sahasrabudhe.

The gates, though, are not closed for students who wish to take the MCA course from other streams. Colleges have been asked to run a short bridge course to bring such students up to speed with the rest.

Meanwhile, AICTE has made the faculty-student ratio 1:15 in deemed universities and autonomous colleges to improve their quality. The norm for all government and aided colleges is 1:20.

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