Management institutes to conduct tests again

Ahmedabad/Bangalore, Dec 1 (ANI): All candidates who could not write the Common Admission Test (CAT) for admission to prestigious business schools across the country due to a technical glitch, would be given one more chance, officials said here on Monday.

"Every single candidate who has not been able to complete the test because of the glitch that happened will be accommodated. I would like to guarantee on behalf of IIMs otherwise we would have failed in our duties altogether, so there would be not be a single candidate who has not been able to take the test because of the glitch in the computers, who will not be accommodated. But will there be inconvenience to some extent, the answer is yes. The fact that the person went on the first day and was not able to take the test, in it is the huge inconvenience," said Samir Barua, director, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Officials of Prometric, a US-based education testing and assessment agency, entrusted with the responsibility of conducting the exam, said the current problems would be sorted out.

"We would give another opportunity to every candidate who was unable to test because that is the core focus of what we have been doing. We also improve the network and day-to-day basis, addressing the vagaries of the existing infrastructure network what we have and what we haven't, to better serve the candidate," said Charlie Karnan, chief operating officer of Prometric.

N R Narayana Murthy, mentor of Infosys, said that despite the glitches he was positive that online examinations were there to stay.

"I think such online examinations are here to stay, today all GMAT, GRE (Graduate Management Admission Test and Graduate Record Exam) exams are all taken online. I think we need to put in a little bit more effort to make sure that the youngsters are not put to inconvenience like it happened in the last two days. And I am positive that next year onwards all these problems will be a thing of the past. And we will be well on our way to leveraging the power of electronic testing," said Murthy.

Over 240,000 candidates had applied appeared for the CAT.

Computers crashed at nearly 40 centers across the country when the test was conducted on November 28. (ANI)