ahmedabad in the last round of admissions for mba courses in gujarat conducted by admission committee for professional courses acpc 2065 seats remained vacant for the mca course the number was 4143 another 4000 seats remained vacant for the mca lateral course to which students of the bca course and courses such as bsc mathematics can directly gain entrynot long ago these courses were sought because of the prospects they offered with rise in the number of seats fortunes have changed while mca course seats have been reduced by 20 over the past three years the number is 11 for mbavinay patel an mba graduate is one of the students who found it difficult to get a job after graduating in 2016 i tried finding a suitable job for one year he said i eventually settled for a rs 10000 per month job at a courier firm the reason for choosing the course was the lure of a good life but not everyone gets a fivefigure salary of the 108 institutions offering mba courses 98 are selffinanced consisting of 94 of the seats as for the mca courses of 4732 seats 93 are with 56 selffinanced colleges the seats saw an exponential rise in 2000s when the demand was high and the pay was good said a senior acpc member the courses are looking at the winds of change in the startup boom especially mca which has potential for a wide array of fields ranging from machine learning to mobile application development it is easier to get admission in the be computer course now said dr jignesh doshi the dean for computer applications gujarat technological university gtu thus we see more vacant seats compared to a decade ago doshi said a large chunk is made of bca students we believe that mca today is versatile and can provide better job opportunities at the entry levelaakash dobariya an mca graduate from the city said that due to low salaries those with the bca degree get a better shot at jobs compared to those spending two more years learning coding the demand is to make the course structure similar to that in nearby states where it is a threeyear course in recognition of the changing field he saidthe new demand niche courses such as barch bplan and bachelor courses for interior design and construction technology have much better demand said acpc officials for the past three years these courses have reported less than 30 vacant seats