This has been decided in a meeting of IIM Council, chaired by Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal and attended by Union Minister for State for HRD D. Purandeshwari Devi, Secretary, Higher Education and directors of various IIMs.

Till now the admission policies of different IIMs are not same though they take admission on the basis of CAT scores only.
A proposal regarding external review of each IIM at the interval of every three years also passed. Council has also given its nod for the peer review of faculty of various IIMs.

In such a situation several other options were discussed for admission in MBA programmes. According to sources it was common feeling that organizing such examination at all India level is an expensive option. Considering the lesser number of applicants for the courses from other cities of the country it is not a feasible option for the university. In such a situation CAT, GRE, GMAT and MAT were discussed for the admission process. But most of the members favoured CAT considering its track record and level of efficiency for the selection of the right candidate.

However, if the state level examination does not reflects marks the candidate will have to appear in the OPENMAT, scheduled on 13th February.

IGNOU offers OPENMAT for various management programmes including diploma in management, MBA, post graduate diploma in financial management, human resource management, management, marketing management, operations management.

Chavan as a Minister of State for Personnel and Training put all the efforts to change the examination scheme for the Civil Services. It is another matter that the newly introduced change will benefit the students of Mahaharashtra the most. (Maharashtra has been witnessing maximum number of applicants for aptitude test based IIM-CAT traditionally). Last month UPSC announced the change in Civil Services examination (prelims) pattern.

An engineering graduate from BITS, Pilani and student of University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A. Chavan started his political career in 1996 as a member of Lok Sabha. He has been associated with the Ministry of Science and Technology since 1991.

This is the second year that CAT exams are being conducted online. Last year, major technical glitches forced over 8,000 students to retake the prestigious examination.

However, with longer operational trials and technical preparedness, the tests are expected to be smooth this year. A practice test paper was also released earlier by Prometric, the US-based IT firm responsible for the online format.

“This year, the number of technical problems faced by test takers were fewer than last year. The support staff at the test venues was better equipped to handle the glitches this time round,” Vinayak Kudva, product head at CAT coaching institute IMS, told IANS.

With around two lakh students appearing for the exams this year, Kudva advises students to be prepared to face any kind of technical problems.

“I would recommend students to be mentally prepared for technical glitches and understand that their chances will not get hampered by it,” Kudva said.

The tests, to be conducted at 78 centres across 33 cities in a staggered format, will conclude Nov 24. A total of 204,267 candidates have registered for CAT 2010, with the highest number of registration from Maharashtra where 30,296 candidates have registered.

Forty different sets of question papers have been prepared for the exam — the results for which will be declared Jan 12, 2011.

IANS

The two hours and 30 minutes online test, including initial 15 minute tutorial, will consists of questions to evaluate quantitative, verbal, and logical & data interpretation abilities of a candidate. The test divided into three sections, will have about 60 questions to get admission in the 10 IIMs and other B-Schools. The test is jointly organized by IIM, Kolkata, and IIM, Lucknow.

According to Himanshu Rai, Convener of CAT-2010 at IIM-L about 2.04 lakh candidates have registered for CAT-2010. The number is about 18% lesser than the registered candidates of previous year (2009). 2.41 lakh candidates had been registered for CAT-2009. In fact, this is second consecutive year when the CAT organizers have witnessed decrease in the number of candidates. Over 2.46 lakh candidates had registered for CAT-2008.

The interesting fact is that Delhi has registered lesser number of candidates than Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. While Maharashtra has the highest number of candidates (40,000) and UP has 26,000 candidates Delhi (Which is known as educational hub) has just 19,000 candidates for CAT.

The test will be conducted from October 27 to November 24 in 33 cities.

The Ist paper will consist of general studies and will have 200 marks. The two-hour paper will have questions related to current events of national and international importance, history of India and Indian national movement, Indian and World Geography- physical, social, economic geography of India and the world, Indian polity and governance – constitution, political system, panchayati raj, public policy, Rights issues, etc, Economic and social development – sustainable development, poverty, inclusion, demographics, social sector initiatives, general issues on environmental ecology, bio-diversity and climate change-that donot require subject specialization and general science.

The IInd paper will test the aptitude of candidate for civil services. The paper will have 200 marks and it will include topics like comprehension, interpersonal skills including communication skills, logical reasoning and analytical ability, decision making and problem solving, general mental ability, basic numeracy (numbers and their relations, orders of magnitude etc. (Class X level), Data interpretation (charts, graphs, tables, data sufficiency etc. –Class X level and English language comprehension skills. Both the paper will be of two hours and there will be no test for subject at the preliminary level. The government and UPSC had already been made announcements in this regard earlier.

There would be a separately trained team to check and re-check the software and hardware capabilities, said an official.

Roy also said stress is given on security and security checks like thumb impressions and images of candidates would be used while appearing for examination in order to check proxy candidates.
CAT 2009 became a disaster after technical glitches and server crashes at several centres across the country.

(With agency inputs)

Nearly a million starry-eyed young Indians last week waited keenly for announcements on the start of the process of admission to the hallowed portals of leading management schools.

A flurry of activity kicked in among final year college students aspiring for a place in the management programmes for the 2011 batch at the nine Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), the Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) in the North, the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS) in the West and the Xavier’s Labour Relations Institute (XLRI) in the East.

The results of these four MBA entrance exams will allow candidates’ entry into these 12 well-known institutes. They are also accepted by over 200 other MBA institutions as the yardstick for admission to their programmes, many of them equally reputed and having rigorous academic standards.

In recent years there has been an exponential growth in the number of test-takers to IIMs and other management institutes. This has put immense pressure on the testing system as well as faculty at management institutes, resulting in the search for computer-based test similar to GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test).

GMAT’s standardised tests use psychometric principles to design, calibrate and score questions using advanced statistical models to accurately determine a candidate’s aptitude. That is perhaps why it is taken as a benchmark, as its test scores are used by over 1,800 graduate programmes worldwide and have helped establish the MBA degree as a hallmark of excellence in management education.

In India, the equivalent could be the new computer-based assessment model being tried out. On paper, computer-based assessment offers many advantages. A more efficient system, it saves time for the students, provides them with the flexibility of choosing and or rescheduling the test date, ensures security and nullifies chances of leaked question papers. Each candidate gets a unique but equivalent question paper. At the same time it also frees up the faculty from unnecessary administrative headaches and gives them more time to concentrate on academics.

The year 2009 was a watershed year in terms of introduction of computer-based testing by the IIMs and NMIMS. XLRI, the 60-year old management school, pioneered the conduct of the computer-based test, XAT, for pre-admission selection in 2001-02 but reverted to a paper and pencil method of testing as the infrastructure was just not ready then. Delhi University’s Faculty of Management Studies, that has been offering post-graduate management programmes for over five decades, too follows this traditional method of testing.

The experience of many among the quarter million students who appeared for the first computer-based admission test by US-testing company Prometric, ranged from less than satisfactory to traumatic, while NMIMS Admission Ttes (NMAT) takers reported a trouble-free computer-based admission test in early 2010 in terms of student experience despite adherence to strict academic rigour. The entrance exams for XLRI and FMS too passed off smoothly.

In response to the issues faced by test takers, the vibrant management education institutions and testing industry have taken several steps. IIMs have extended the test window to 20 days (from 10 days last year) as a risk mitigation strategy, NMIMS’ NMAT is using the 90-day window to move towards “on-demand” testing, following other leading global admission tests, enabling the candidates to take the test when they are best prepared.

NMAT 2011 incorporates many candidate- friendly international features. For example, each candidate can opt for three attempts and highest score out of these attempts will be used for evaluation purposes akin to how top MBA programmes like Harvard and Wharton use the best score in GMAT. Self-scheduling option will allow candidates to choose the date and time of test in real time mode from the comfort of their homes.

NMIMS has taken a conscious decision to do away with negative marking. Most leading global tests like GMAT, LSAT and GRE do not do negative marking and instead rely on latest techniques in psychometrics based on a candidate’s response to questions, including taking informed guesses without the fear of losing marks to measure a candidate’s aptitude based on behaviour. The candidates must thank NMIMS’ testing partner Pearson VUE for taking away the unwarranted stress posed by negative marking in the pre-admission tests.

An educational process, as in any other process, is strongly linked to quality of input into the process. A well-designed admission test serves the critical purpose of accurately determining a candidate’s aptitude best suited for their programmes.

Now is the time for the test-takers to focus on rigorous preparation so that they make it to the top 200 management schools. Only then will India be able to select MBA aspirants who are bright, passionate and committed to making a career. Institutes that have an experienced faculty and strong industry-linked curriculum and students who have triumphed a tough but fair, equitable and trusted admission process will give the Indian economy a strong fillip with a managerial cadre that supplements growth.

IANS

Post Graduate Programme in management is available at all the IIMs including Ahmedabad, Banalore, Calcutta, Indore, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Ranchi, Rohtak, and Shillong. Fellow programme, equivalent to Ph.D., is available at IIM-A, IIM-B, IIM-C, IIM-I, IIM-K and IIM-L only. Last date for registration for examination is 30th September 2010. For more detail candidates can visit www.catiim.in.