Don’t Tick, Just Click

Six top state government officials in Karnataka were arrested in September for their involvement in the leakage of question papers of a departmental test. In June, there were rumours that the pre-medical entrance test paper of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) had been leaked. In May, the combined law admission test for entry to India’s 11 premier law universities had to be postponed after reports that test papers had leaked out. Every year, thousands of students see their intense preparations for make-or-break examinations held hostage to cheating and corruption.

To overcome this, many organisations are switching over from pen and paper to computer-based testing (CBT). According to a CLSA Asia Pacific Markets 2008 report on the education sector, the market for CBT, valued at $150 million (Rs 735 crore), is expected to grow to $750 million (Rs 3,675 crore) by 2012 in India.

As awareness levels grow, a rising number of service providers are entering the field — from established players such as Bangalore-based firm Eduquity, Aptech’s Attest and MeritTrac to new giants such as Pearson Vue and Prometric. “Keeping everything tamper-proof and safe is the most important component of testing,” says Uday Kulkarni, executive vice-president of Aptech and national head of the company’s testing arm, Attest.

At present, only a small percentage of combined entrance tests after senior secondary are computer-based, but the numbers are set to go up massively with the government’s increased focus on information and communication technology (ICT) for schools, and its plans to convert part of the school examination system to CBT. The Central Board of Secondary Education is also working on introducing virtual testing at the Class X level, where board examinations were recently replaced with an optional, on-demand testing system. In time and with the right pricing, it is expected that all small, skill-based tests, such as the driving test, can also be converted into the CBT format.

THE SCORECARD

About 3 million computer-based tests (CBTs) are conducted every year in India. At least 100 million CBTs every year can be added as per market estimates. Market growing at a fast pace. Attest, the testing arm of Aptech, has conducted 1.2 million CBTs in 10 months this year, while the number for the previous five years is 2.7 million. The cost of computer-based tests can be anywhere between Rs 1,000 and Rs 30,000.

Moreover, while certification programmes of IT majors such as Microsoft, Oracle and Cisco have always followed the CBT format, now, recruitment agencies such as MeritTrac use them to judge the competence of potential employees. HR departments of companies administer CBTs, which can often be taken from home, as the first level of filtration for inter-departmental promotions.

It is true that CBTs cost nearly thrice as much as a pen and paper test, but they come with greater potential for scaling and the eventual reduction of the price tag. “The initial investment needed for this is high, but over a period it pays off,” says G. Raghurama, deputy director for academics at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, which adopted a computer-based entrance examination system of admission in 2005.

Other Benefits
The first pan-Indian examination to join the CBT bandwagon this year will be the Combined Admission Test (CAT) conducted by the seven IIMs. “With the number of students taking CAT increasing every year, the one-day, single-sitting format was putting a lot of pressure on the system,” says Satyesh Deodhar, in-charge of admissions at IIM-Ahmedabad, and coordinator of the entire CBT exercise for CAT. Under the new system, there is a 10-day testing window for the examinations starting from 23 November and ending on 7 December. “Although there is no provision now to reschedule the test within a given window in case one misses it on a particular day, in due course, it will be built into the system,” Deodhar says.
 
Administered in air-conditioned rooms, CBTs also ensure a better environment for the examinee. “The uneven and unstable desks during the examination, which had to be continually shifted and adjusted, were very distracting, especially in a high-pressure exam such as CAT,” says Ankita Sehgal, an MBA student from Amity International who took CAT in 2008.