Despite an increase in the number of students at the Bermuda College this year, certain courses still had to be cancelled due to lack of interest ? something which could affect some professions in the future.

With the registration ending today, 939 students have registered for credited courses and 157 for non-credited courses.

Of the 939 registered for credited courses, 677 are female and 262 are male. And the majority of these are "mature" students.

Bermuda College vice president Dr. Larita Alford said this week that the greatest challenge facing the College in the future was providing industries with people in areas such as office administration, for which there are many jobs available in Bermuda, but which local students show no interest in pursuing.

Dr. Alford said students were more interested in business and accounting and even the older, "mature" students were interested in other things.

"We approach office administrators and tell them they have the opportunity to get a degree, but they say while they are interested in furthering their education, they want to do something else," she said.

She said the College would have to take a serious look at programmes like office administration and decide whether or not to offer them at all.

Office administration classes have been scrapped this year due to a lack of interest.

Meanwhile in other courses, classes have had to be added, which posed another challenge due to the lack of faculty.

One of these courses is accounting which boasts full classes this year.

Another is in the automotive area in which classes are full and the College is looking at offering part-time classes for students who could not get in.

Dr. Alford is hopeful that the College for working adults, which starts in September, will rescue the office administration programme.

She said over the past five years there has been a definite shift in the age of the student population.

One reason for this could be the college's intense marketing campaign started in 2002 and aimed at adults.

An office assistant skills course was recently advertised in the local media and Dr. Alford said the College hoped to attract mature students for this particular course.

As for what the industry here needs, Dr. Alford said the College had a close working relationship with local companies who not only offered scholarships to students, but also kept them abreast of staff shortages and demands in the industry.