No taking mouse away from CAT

The Common Admission Test (CAT) will continue to be online and there will be no retest this year.

The Common Admission Test (CAT) will continue to be online and there will be no retest this year.

HT Image

The inaugural computerised edition of the exam, taken by those aspiring to join the prestigious Indian Institutes of Management and a few other business schools, was hit by technical glitches.

“We can’t afford to go back to the pencil-paper format because the numbers of aspirants are increasing and it’ll be unmanageable,” said an IIM director, who did not wish to be identified.

The directors of all the IIMs met in Mumbai on Sunday to discuss the fiasco that this year’s CAT turned out to be. The test coordinators from each of the IIM will meet the human resource development ministry officials on Wednesday. Decision to continue with the online format is to be announced then.

The directors have not decided if Prometric, the US-based agency that conducted the test this year, will be retained. Virus attacks and problems with servers created chaos at centres across the country. Some students are still waiting for new dates to take the test.

The IIMs are sure that the admission schedule will remain unaffected and the result will be out on January 22.

“Those who have not yet taken the tests will be rescheduled… As for people threatening to go to court, that happened even during the pencil-paper format, so nothing can be done about it,” said another director.