How has MCA evolved into an industry-oriented programme?

The postgraduate programme of Master of Computer Application (MCA) has been a popular course for non-engineering aspirants who wish to pursue a career in the IT field for many years. Students from Mathematics, Computer Science and Computer Application streams have been seeking out this course as a stepping stone into the IT Industry.

The appeal of MCA course lies in it being a very comprehensive curriculum which is a good mix of fundamentals and emerging technologies. The special focus of MCA is towards domain specific and industry-oriented curriculum with a dedicated internship.

Students can also opt for a five-year integrated programme in MCA after Class 12 which is offered by select universities. This programme enables the students to focus on learning technology domains as well as fundamental courses in a very structured way. This is an ideal course for those students who want to understand the technologies in a gradual but consistent manner. The eligibility to the MCA programme is based on percentage obtained in the qualifying examination. It is Class 12 for Integrated MCA and graduate with a Mathematics course either in Class 12 or graduation for the postgraduate programme of MCA.

The dedicated internship of six months in MCA and one year in Integrated MCA respectively enables the industry to get competent graduates who are not only trained in niche technologies but are also conversant with industry processes and practices.

This is a win-win situation for both students and industry as the students are ready to be assigned to billable projects from day one.

In 2010, the AICTE permitted lateral entry admission for the BCA and BSc. Computer Science students directly into the second year of the programme. It helped them to save a year and complete their MCA degree in two years. At the same time, AICTE kept the road open for non-computer science graduate students for the traditional three-year postgraduate degree. 

In a recent development, students from Commerce stream and Statistics stream in Class 12 are also eligible for the Integrated MCA course.

This creates a huge opening for students with Accountancy and Statistics to take up a career in IT Industry and is a welcome move. MCA being an application-oriented curriculum, knowledge of Commerce is essential for developing business applications. With the world moving towards big data and analytics in a big way, knowledge of statistics combined with MCA is a very relevant skill.

In a welcome move, the AICTE published a notification in the early part of this year to reduce the duration of MCA from three to two years. This decision arrived at the 545th Meeting of the University Grant Commission (UGC) held in December 2019. This new notification by the AICTE to convert MCA into a two-year programme is an excellent development that has paved way for a comprehensive overhaul of the programme and the opportunity for the academic fraternity to integrate emerging technology in the syllabus.

The new curriculum in most universities will include latest technologies namely Data Science, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Virtual and Augmented Reality. In addition, knowledge of various domains such as Banking, Insurance, E-commerce will be provided.

This will help in fulfilling the increased demand for domain experts in these emerging fields. Today Industry is also looking for certified professionals in technologies such as Amazon Web Services, Salesforce, Robotic Path Automation. The students joining the newly revamped MCA will be equipped with niche technology and domain knowledge which will make them competent to take up certifications in these desired technologies and get certified. This will ensure that they will get employment in par with computer engineering graduates. 

According to the IT Employment Outlook Survey by the Experis, the demand for trained and fresh IT graduates is going to at 53.41% for April–September.

The result of this survey has revealed that the hiring trend will be in favour of the millennial and Gen Z workers. This means that there are plenty of job opportunities in IT sector in software companies, system maintenance centres, manufacturing companies, a government organisation for the fresh graduates where they can work as Software Engineer, Developer, Programmer, Programmer Analyst or Data Scientist.  The prominent government organisations that employ MCA graduates are National Informatics Centre, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Indian Institute of Sciences and DRDO. The major private sector employers include TCS, Infosys, WIPRO, HCL, Accenture, Mphasis, Capegemini, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Virtusa, Salesforce, Mindtree, Verizon to name a few.

Armed with the new eligibility norms, the new look MCA is going to be a force to reckon with. It can be said that the MCA graduates equipped with niche knowledge will be able to find employment in private as well as public sector along with overseas jobs and thereby pursue a fruitful career in IT sector.

About the author

Geeta Santosh is HOD FCA Faculty of Computer Applications, Acropolis Institute of Technology and Research Indore, M.P

Note: The views expressed in this article are solely author’s own and do not reflect/represent those of Shiksha