MCA rises to meet demands of IT in Telangana

Hyderabad: As demand for Engineering seats drops, that for the Master of Computer Applications (MCA) is seeing a revival of sorts with the rise of Big Data and Analytics as well as start-ups and mid-scale IT companies in the state. Some 16,000 aspirants have qualified for the Integrated Common Entrance Test (ICET) to compete for 2,077 MCA seats. 

The demand for MCA graduates had fallen with the fortunes of the traditional IT outsourcing industry, and the government had cut the number of colleges offering the degree from 30 to 18. With the rise in demand for Analytics and Big Data professionals, MCA is back in the reckoning as the programme covers computing, accounting and finance, programming, designing and managing networks and databases and, importantly, focuses on statistics. 

“Most MCA graduates have had statistics at undergraduate level and Big Data and Business Analytics companies prefer candidates with statistics background, rather than typical B.Tech graduates. Engineers don’t have statistics background, whereas MCA programme has papers on statistics,’’ says Prof. T. Shrinivas Acharya of Vishwa Vishwani Institute of Technology. 

“The demand for MCA has picked up as the state IT ministry is trying hard to revive the IT boom in the state and create jobs. Apart from big companies like TCS, IBM, Wipro and Google, there are now many start-ups in the state which are providing opportunities to MCA graduates,’’ says Ramdas Naik, who heads Nizam College’s MCA department.