IIMs to review first online CAT

GANDHINAGAR - The directors of all the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) in the country are slated to meet next month to review the first online Common Admission Test (CAT) conducted for entry into the IIMs and other business schools, an official said Wednesday.

Satish Deodhar, the convenor of the CAT-2009 examinations told mediapersons in Ahmedabad that the directors are also likely to take a decision on whether to continue with the online tests in view of the complaints this year, and also review IIMs partnership with Pro-metric in conducting the online test.

The venue of the meeting is yet to be fixed.

Admitting to some glitches, Deodhar, however, said that the CAT-2009 was “very successful”.

“If my opinion is sought as the convenor of the first online test, I would favour continuing with the system. Beginnings have to be made and some problems do take place the first time over but are corrected in time. Computer test is the future,” he said.

Deodhar said that some candidates had raised issues pertaining to transparency of the online test and its results, but denied that there had been any wrong judgement or that aspirants had suffered due to the glitches.

He also made light of the RTI queries in the matter of the online tests pointing out that as a public institution, the IIMs always received RTIs even when the tests were conducted through the conventional method.

“IIM, Ahmedabad, received five RTI queries last year, while the number had gone up by one after the first online test this year. In case of a genuine complaint on CAT score, we will ask Pro-metric to re-evaluate the score,” he added.

“CAT scores were accurate and were calculated based on the best international testing practices,” he said.