AICTE Data: Management, MCA see highest enrolment in 5 years; pharmacy lowest

NEW DELHI: The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) data has revealed that in the 2022-23 academic year management and masters of computer applications programmes had the highest enrollment in five years. Pharmacy witnessed the lowest enrollment in the same academic year.

The data shared by AICTE also sheds light on the fact that women are more inclined to enrol in architecture and planning and design courses. In architecture and planning, 55.99% of students enrolled were women, while 66.21% of those enrolled in design courses were women. At 18.2%, hotel management saw the lowest participation of women.

MBA admission: Intake Vs enrolment

In 2022-23, the approved intake – number of seats – by the AICTE was 4,22,628 and 2,85,367 students were enrolled, which amounted to 67.5% of the approved seats being filled. Of the total students enrolled, 57.89% were men and 42.11% were women. The AICTE-approved courses include Masters of Business Administration (MBA) and post graduate diploma in management (PGDM).

Also read AICTE: At 81%, BTech enrolment highest in 5 years; MTech's lowest at 33%

The 2018-19 academic year saw management courses admitting the smallest number of students in five years – 2,37,497 against an approved intake of 3,74,264, which translates into a 63% occupancy of seats.

Management Courses: Year-wise approved intake and enrollment

In 2022-23, occupancy rose to 67.5% despite the number of seats growing by around 18,000.

Kavita Singh, professor at Delhi University’s Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), points to two main reasons for the growing interest among students.

“First, the way the market pays these management graduates, the interest will certainly go up. Their pay packages are much higher than those received by other course students. Second, there are a lot of engineers who want to pursue a career in management,” said Singh.

AICTE Data: MCA seats and admissions

For masters in computer applications, 56.64% enrolled students were men and 43.36% women. For this course again in 2022-23, AICTE had approved 80,647 seats, out of which 66,999 were claimed by students.

The AICTE has said they will also be regulating the undergraduate computer application courses and other professional courses like Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), Bachelor of Management Studies (BMS) and others.

MCA: Year-wise approved intake and students enrolled

Also read AICTE reforming BBA, BCA with new curriculum, internships, scholarships; no cap on seats this year

However, 2017-18 was the year when the regulatory body had approved the maximum of 85,074 seats. But at 31,376, the number of students enrolled was relatively low.

Pharmacy admissions

The pharmacy courses had the lowest enrolment of all in 2022-23.

That year, just 19,379 students were enrolled against a total approved intake of 1,04,723 – just 18.5% – marking a massive drop from 2021-22, when 71,682 students were enrolled against 1,06,293 seats.

After 2019-20, the number of approved seats in the course – 2,75,789 that year – also started to drop.

Ramesh Goyal, vice chancellor of Delhi Pharmaceutical Sciences and Research University (DPSRU), explained, “The pharmacy courses are now exclusively run by the Pharmacy Council of India (PCI). There was a Supreme Court judgement which went in favour of PCI and stated that AICTE will not have control over pharmacy institutes. The process started in the last two years and from 2023-24 session PCI would give recognition. Previously, we were taking approval from AICTE as we could get the advantage of the various schemes.”