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No CAT in pvt institutions
KOLKATA : This year's online Common Admission
Test for admission to the country's six Indian
Institutes of Managementn (IIMs) is not likely to be
held in private institutes in Kolkata and more than 10
tier-II cities where technical glitches compelled
rescheduling of the test.
Instead, they are likely to be held in government
establishments and public institutions, where no such
glitches took place last December, when the IIMs held
their first online test with the help of US-based
company Prometric Testing.
Prometric India MD Soumitra Roy said on March 30, “We
have noticed the maximum number of glitches took place
in tier-II like
Bhopal and Lucknow... We feel that the virus attacks
that affected CAT 2009 might have been local problems.
Our central
server had no problem but the trouble occurred while
downloading the questions....“
Prometric is currently compiling a report on CAT 2009
and will submit it to the IIMs by mid-May.
Prometric
executives
admits CAT mistakes NEW DELHI : The Prometric Testing Pvt. Limited,
the service provider for the
Common Admission Test for the IIMs admitted for the
first time on March 7 that inadequate pre-test
rehearsals at testing centres were responsible for the
glitches that plagued the 2009 examination.
The company executive Charles Kernan told reporters here
at a press conference that substandard infrastructure at some test centres, which
went unchecked before the 2009 CAT, led to glitches that
almost pushed the IIMs into cancelling their first
computerised admission test.
The below-par infrastructure allowed computer viruses to
cripple networks at 13 per cent testing centres, leaving
thousands of students disadvantaged as they appeared for
the CAT, he said.
“The problem was not our inability to conduct the CAT on
a large scale. There were problems at specific testing
centres where the infrastructure could not stop the
viruses,” he told reporters.
“Thirteen per cent of the network failed on the first
three days while the remaining eight days of the
examination were smooth. In January, when a re-test was
held for some students, there were no displacements. The
examination was conducted as per internationally
accepted standards and we are satisfied. Of the 2.16
lakh candidates who completed the examination in the
first testing window from November 28 to December 8,
over 2 lakh took their examinations satisfactorily,” Mr.
Kernan said.
Kernan and Dave Meissner — a vice-president at Prometric
— argued that the glitches were a result of the lack of
uniform infrastructure standards across testing centres.
Pressed, they conceded that different testing centres
had different levels of preparation for preventing virus
attacks — the first time CAT 2009 organisers have
accepted that all centres were not equally ready.
They also accepted that more rigorous pre-CAT rehearsals
at all testing centres could have helped minimise the
risk of test-day problems.
Common standards of protection against virus attacks
could help ensure that 2010 does not see a repeat of the
2009 CAT, Meissner said.
The problem
“The problem was in the local infrastructure and sites.
The readiness of every testing venue with regard to the
system and software is important,” he said. Admitting
that there was a virus in the 13 per cent of the network
which was affected, Mr. Kernan refused to divulge
information about the nature or names of the virus and
said the continuation of the contract with the IIMs
would be discussed. The CAT-2009 results had been
accurately compiled and correctly reflected the
performance of each student, Mr. Kernan said.
“Prometric adopted an industry-standard psychometrically
sound approach to the scoring process. A three-step
process was followed which is supported by the Standards
for Educational and Psychological Testing and the ETS
Standards for Quality and Fairness. As it is with every
examination, some people are bound to be happy and
others unhappy with their scores. Not everybody gets
calls from sought after institutes,” he added.
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For
details go to :
IIM, Ahemdabad
IIM, Bangalore
IIM, Calcutta
IIM, Lucknow
IIM, Indore
IIM, Kozhikode
IIM, Shillong |
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IIM
Common Admission Test to go global
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NEW DELHI : The Indian Institutes of Management (IIM)
are quietly working towards expanding their Common
Admission Test into an international examination to draw
students from abroad and to compete w ith
the globally-popular Graduate Management Aptitude Test.
According to an exclusive story published in
Hindustan Times on July 2, credited to Charu Sudan
Kasturi, the initiative is said to be a key component of
a confidential contract signed between IIMs and
Prometric, the American computer-based testing (CBT)
service provider.
“Prometric will provide CBT services to IIMs in India
... and to IIMs for global expansion of the CAT
program,“ states an agreement signed between the IIMs
and the service provider, accessed through the Right to
Information Act.
The “global expansion“ was also a reason why IIM
rejected the bid of the Graduate Management Aptitude
Council - a non profit body that conducts GMAT - for the
computerisation of the CAT.
But IIMs have never revealed a vision to pit CAT against
GMAT, used by top B-schools in North America and western
Europe. “We wanted to keep the project under wraps. No
one wants to forewarn competitors,“ said the HT report
quoting an IIM Director.
IIM
Rohtak starts from MDU, classes begin
From Our Correspondent
ROHTAK : Mentored by Indian Institute of Management,
Lucknow, the Rohtak IIM was formally ‘inaugurated’ here
on June 30 without a regular director, regular faculty
or a building of its own.
The faculty of IIM, Lucknow would take classes till
Rohtak IIM gets its own faculty. The process could take
a year though a permanent director is expected to be
appointed within a month or so.
Maharshi Dayanand University (MDU) has agreed to host
the IIM on its campus till it gets its own building in
the next two years. The host university has also
arranged for temporary residence of the temporary
faculty members.
All 50 seats offered by the institute have been filled
by 47 boys and 3 girls. They were all present to attend
the first day of their two-year postgraduate programme.
While the students hail from different parts of the
country, the three girl students are from Delhi, Punjab
and a South Indian state respectively.
The admission was held through Combined Admission Test
(CAT) and interviews held at IIM, Lucknow. Three classes
were held on the first day. Professor M Akbar delivered
a lecture on strategic management while Prof N K Gupta
took a class on quantitative analysis.
The business school was formally launched by Ravi Kant,
Vice-Chairman of Tata Motors Limited and Chairperson of
the Board of Governors, IIM, Rohtak.
He exhorted the students to strive hard to inculcate
skills of a leader, an entrepreneur and a manager. He
said, “ there is a lot of uncertainty, unpredictability
and complexity in the world; a competent management
professional must master these challenges along with
technological breakthroughs.”
However, Kant maintained that the students must not
forsake ethical and moral values in the pursuit of
money, fame or profit. He advocated intellectual and
financial honesty and integrity in professional as well
as personal life.
IIM
Calcutta announces a steep fee hike
From Our Correspondent
CALCUTTA : After Bangalore and Ahemdabad, the Indian
Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta has also
increased fee for its two-year postgraduate diploma in
management programme from Rs 9 lakh to Rs 13.5 lakh
citing “excellent placements.”.
Ajit Balakrishnan, the chairman of the board of
governors justified the fee hike on April 3 saying “The
decision to raise the fees was taken after considering
the fact that we have had excellent placements this
year. And we need more funds…. So, the hike is
justified.”
The new fee will come into effect for students taking
admission from this academic session, due to start in
another two months. The decision was taken at a board
meeting before the institute’s annual convocation.
The institute, which had refrained from big hikes
claiming that fees were not “make or break” for an
institute, conceded that it needed more money. “Earlier,
we used to believe that fees are not the benchmark for
academic quality but things have changed. We need more
money for infrastructure development and research.
Moreover, we can give more scholarships with this
money,” Balakrishnan said.
For the past three years, the top three business schools
in the country had not received any grant from the
Centre except for the allowance for infrastructure
augmentation to implement the OBC reservation.
“We are adding over 5 lakh sqft to accommodate more
students and create more facilities. We also want to
focus more on research. The increased fees will help us
turn IIM Calcutta into a world-class institute,” a
faculty member said.
The fees at the three IIMs are still around one-fourth
of those charged by top B-schools in the US and Europe,
the faculty member said.
The fee hike will enable IIM Calcutta to generate
surplus funds for long-term development. The institute
is estimated to spend around Rs 10 lakh on each student.
Although IIM Calcutta had planned to admit around 464
students this year to implement the OBC quota, lack of
infrastructure has forced the authorities to restrict
the number to 375.
Ahemdabad, Bangalore IIMs trigger fee hike
From Sanjiv Dube
NEW DELHI : On March 29 the Board of Governors of
the IIM Bangalore which met in Bangalore on March 29
under the chairmanship of Reliance Industries chairman
Mukesh Ambani decided to revise the fees from Rs 11.5
lakh to Rs 13 lakh from the academic year 2010.
Apart from fee hike, Bangalore IIM has also raised the
intake for 2010 batch from the existing 350 to 375. For
2011-12 batch, it will be further increased to 425 seats
with an additional section. With the increase in the
intake, the institute will have complied with the 27 per
cent OBC quota, IIM-B director Pankaj Chandra told
reporters.
The decision had a quick reaction and IIM Ahemdabad also
announced a fee hike on March 30. It raised the
admission fee for its postgraduate programme (PGP) batch
of 2010-2012 to Rs 13.7 lakh, a 9.6 per cent hike from
the Rs 12.5 lakh the 2009-11 batch paid. The fee
includes all costs other than food.
IIM-A has made an upward revision of its fees for the
third consecutive year. Now the students joining the
June 2010-12 batch for the two-year PGP course, the fees
structure will be Rs. 13.70 lakh — Rs 6.6 lakh in the
first year and the balance Rs. 7.10 lakh in the second
year — as against Rs. 12.5 lakh last year, which was
raised from Rs. 11.5 lakh the previous year.
The fees hike proposal was discussed at the IIM-A Board
of Governors meeting held on March 27 but the IIM-A
authorities waited for a couple of days to let IIM
Bangalore take the lead in fee hike announcement.
Like last year, the fee hike announcement by the two
IIMs will have a chain reaction and all IIMs and other
B-schools are also likely to hike their fee structure
soon, said a management guru who refused to be
identified.
Computer
aided CAT to stay, says Deodhar
AHMEDABAD : ‘CAT-2009’ convenor Satish Deodhar
hinted on March 10 that the future Common Admission
Tests for admission to Indian Institutes of Management
will be held in computer-aided format and that the days
of pencil-an-paper CAT are gone.
Answering allegations of mismanagement, he said that
barring initial glitches the first computer-based test
was successful.
“With the successful conduct of computer-based
‘CAT-2009’, IIM’s have been able to protect their
intellectual property, in which pencil and paper format
was not possible at all,” Deodhar told reporters here.
“In the pencil and paper format the question used to get
public and IIM’s were losing on their intellectual
property, but with the computer-based test we can
maintain our intellectual property. The future of CAT is
computer-based test.”
The computer-based ‘CAT-2009’ in the first phase was
marred by technical glitches from the very first day as
students faced problems in logging in at centres in
Ahmedabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Bangalore,
Kolkata and Bhopal.
Deodhar said IIM’s have begun to shortlist the
candidates and faculty may have to squeeze out extra
time to make up for the delay in holding of test this
year.
To a query on RTIs filed challenging the CAT results,
Deodhar said : “Around six RTIs have been filed so far
and IIM’s shall reply back to the applicants.” Asked
about PILs challenging holding of CAT, Deodhar said :
“To my knowledge one PIL was filed in Ahmedabad which
has been quashed.”
Cabinet okays 7 new IIMs, bonanza for Rajasthan
By Sanjiv Dube
NEW DELHI : On August 27 the Union cabinet approved the
setting up of seven new Indian Institutes of Management
in the country, paving the way for government plans to
launch four of them later this year.
Briefing reporters here on the Cabinet decision,
Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni said
that the new IIMs will be set up in Trichy (Tamil Nadu),
Ranchi (Jharkhand), Raipur (Chhattisgarh), Rohtak (Haryana),
Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan. None of
them, however, will offer the flagship postgraduate
diploma in management (PGDM) this year and will instead
offer short-term courses in mid-career skills for
working executives.
The government had initially promised six new IIMs — one
each in Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Haryana,
Tamil Nadu and Jammu and Kashmir. But Finance Minister
Pranab Mukherjee’s speech during the interim budget on
February 25 this year erroneously promised an IIM to
Rajasthan, too.
Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the government decided to
take on the extra burden of starting an additional IIM
instead of risking voter anger.
The IIMs at Trichy, Ranchi, Raipur and Rohtak will come
up in the first phase and the classes would start from
the 2010-11 academic year. The other three in Jammu and
Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan will get operational
from 2011-12. The exact locations in these states are
yet to be decided.
Ambika Soni said an allocation of Rs 451 crore as
non-recurring expenditure and Rs.118 crore as recurring
expenditure has been sanctioned for the first phase.
The total requirement of funds for establishment of
seven new IIMs during the 11th Five Year Plan is Rs
1,057 crores, she revealed.
PIB Background:
The XI Five Year Plan endorsed by the National
Development Council (NDC) in December 2007, envisaged,
inter alia, establishment of seven new IIMs in the
country, out of which one IIM namely Rajiv Gandhi Indian
Institute of Management (RGIIM), Shillong has already
been established in Shillong (Meghalaya) commencing its
first academic session from 2008-2009.
In the first phase, four IIMs at Tiruchirappalli (Tamil
Nadu), Ranchi (Jharkhand), Raipur (Chhattishargh) and
Rohtak (Haryana) will be set up in 2009-10, which would
become functional from academic session 2010-11.
Postgraduate Programme (PGP) in Management would be the
flagship programme though in the first year several
executive programmes including those in the public
policy domain focusing on civic and municipal services
etc. would be started. In the second phase, the rest of
3 IIMs will be set up in Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand
and Rajasthan in 2010-11. In phase-I there would be
intake of 140 students in the PGP course and by the end
of phase-II, it would reach 560 students per year.
Admission shall be through the Common Admission Test
(CAT).
The Institutes would also contribute to generation of a
highly competent and trained manpower which would be a
major catalyst for developing a knowledge society that
would inevitably impact on the economic growth of the
country. Apart from this, research in management and
emerging areas would evolve a potential for generating
significant intellectual properties that would generate
sizeable revenue.
The Cabinet has also approved an outlay of Rs 451 crore
(Rs 333 crore for non-recurring expenditure and
Rs.118 crores for recurring expenditure) in the XI FYP
and XII FYP for each IIM. The projected outlay for XI
Five Year Plan for each of the 4 IIMs to be established
during 2009-10 is Rs.166 crore (Rs.135 crore for
non-recurring expenditure and Rs.31 crore for recurring
expenditure). For the remaining three IIMs to be set up
during 2010-11, the requirement for XI Plan would be
Rs.131 crores each (Rs 107 crore non-recurring and Rs
24 crore recurring expenditure). The total requirement
of funds for establishment of seven new IIMs during XI
Plan works out to Rs.1057 crores.
Postgraduate Programme in Management would be the
flagship programme. It is proposed that in phase-I there
would be an intake of 140 students in the PGP course and
by the end of Phase-II, it would reach 560 students per
year. These trained personnel will join the skilled
manpower pool of the country each year.
Locations of IIMs in Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand and
Rajasthan are yet to be decided.
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