Retest: a fair decision

So, the results of the test are out... not the CAT itself but the decision by the IIMs on what next?

Evidently, good sense has prevailed and Mr Samir Barua, Director of IIM Ahmedabad has been quoted in The Times of India today saying: "The focus of IIMs is to complete the test in a fair manner. But the entire test will be reviewed to ensure that such problems do not occur in future."

If you read the Business Standard, however, the tone of the report is somewhat different and the focus seems to be on what will happen to Prometric when their contract is reviewed.

Now, every contract must be reviewed periodically but it doesn't necessarily follow that a review leads to an exit, does it? The focus should be on ensuring that the deserving candidates - i.e. those who suffered - get a fair chance at the retest minus any glitches. Everything else is secondary and it's time everyone concerned figured this out.

To all those who will take the retest of the CAT 2009, all the best!

Z-category Security for CAT data?

Yahoo says Prometric is taking all the steps needed to ensure that the data and the tests would remain secure. That's reassuring but isn't that to be expected anyway? As long as they now don't ask for Z-category security because that could endanger some other VIPs ;-)

Now, let's just hope this is the last we hear on this issue and can move on to the results of the exam. Hopefully, there will be no delay there.

Although the chaiwalla outside the IIMC gate says he overheard two students discussing this and one of them believes any controversy is good. Now, he feels, people will take the CAT a lot more seriously and not just try and crack the exam at any cost by getting trained at any of these coaching classes.

What, yaar, how did he get crack the CAT, I'd like to know?

I am not alone :-)

At last, at least one another sane voice in this madness :-) Thank you Mr Sachidanand.

Future Tense?

Just because the present has problems, must we run away from an inevitable future?

There are several stakeholders in the CAT 2009 entrance tests that seem to be dogged (pun unintended) by controversy. Now that the tests are over for the students, it's the IIMs who are being tested by all and sundry: the Government, rival testing companies and God knows who else!

One tends to forget that there are actually only four stakeholders who really matter:

1. The students.
2. Their families.
3. The institutes (including the IIMs) who will admit these students.
4. And corporates will eventually recruit these students.

Of these, the first and the last are the most important - the IIMs are, anyway, in the midst of it all already. And, it's time someone spoke to the students themselves to ask them what they feel. Did the majority go through the kind of nightmare that now seems to be touted everywhere? Would they be willing to go through the stress of another CAT test again?

I find people a few years younger than me far more mature and practical than I was in their age. They've got their heads screwed on right and take a very pragmatic view of life. Like this young lady here:

Now that the tests are over, perhaps it's time the action moved on as well. The students have their regular college exams to focus on - and remember, that's as important as the CAT. It's time a reassurance was given that will send out a strong signal to the world at large that India - and its premier B-Schools - are capable of going digital. Everyone has had hiccups when they introduced online tests - even the famed GMAT and GRE in a land as developed as the US of A.

As the lady says in this video, "change is always for the good". And good will triumph, always.

CATty Kids?

Overheard a conversation between some security guards outside a CAT test centre in NOIDA:

Bheegi-billi ki tarah aate hain yeh bachchein CAT dene. Phir kareinge MA, MBA, PhD aur na jaane kya. Uske baad, office jaayenge aur kutton ki tarah ladenge... shayad iss liye CAT bolte hain issko.

A Testing Time for Test Centres

There are some prep-centres that are projecting themselves as saviours of the kids this year by saying that the CAT must remain a paper test.

Now, if you ask me, this is a bit like Mr Bean shooting himself in the foot ;-)

Now, the coaching centres will fret and fume because the digitisation of the exam means that they need to reinvent and reinvest in their very profitable business. It's a bit like the politicians who raved and ranted when the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) were introduced. Incidentally, as a piece of trivia, it's useful to know that the world's largest democracy introduced EVMs in Kerala in 1982 but it was only in 2004 that the entire election went electronic (source: The Hindu).

You get the general drift, don't you?

Test centres prefer paper tests because that's what they're used to. So, they'll create enough noise and fury - forgetting about Copenhagen and global warming - but clearly don't have a pulse of their own students. Here's Arun, a student who thinks online is the way to go:


But, are the test-centres listening?

Hyped-up Problems

Okay, here's one that says what I've been trying to say: "The problems are hyped up," says this gent who also gave the CAT this year: