Bangalore, Oct 26: IT firms riding high on "spurt" in outsourcing software may be hiring techies in thousands, but in India's Silicon Valley, institutions offering computer courses are seeing a drastic dip in student admission. Students and parents who have witnessed the technology meltdown in the last two years and its resultant dip in employment opportunities are cautious of taking up IT courses, instead they prefer to opt for basic science or mainstream engineering courses.
Nearly 2,000 seats in IT-related courses of the 8,000 odd engineering seats offered in the Karnataka Common Entrance Test (CET) remained vacant this year, while nearly 12 colleges under Bangalore University offering about 1,200 Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA) and BSc (Computer Sciences) seats stopped them due to low demand by students.
"Since 2001, demand for software courses has come down drastically. In some colleges, the admission is so low that they find it not viable to run it related courses. There is also excess supply over demand," Bangalore University Vice Chancellor Dr M S Thimmappa told reporters.
Though it courses are not finding favour among students, the traditional engineering courses and some basic science courses, besides biotechnology are emerging as hot favourites, he said.
"The demand for it courses has come down, but it is not a negative sign. What we are witnessing is a correction in demand and supply," IT education standard body, Board for IT Education Standards (BITES) Director K R S Murthy said.
Bureau Report