By IANS,
New Delhi : After the online Common Admission Test (CAT) collapsed in several places, creating confusion among thousands of B-school aspirants, the authorities conducting it Friday extended the exam schedule by one day but only in 20 cities.
“Prometric and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) have extended the Common Admission Test (CAT) 2009 till Dec 8. CAT 2009 was scheduled to run for 10 days from Nov 28 to Dec 7, 2009,” the US headquartered Prometric said in an official communique.
The test conducting firm said that “the additional morning session that has been added on Dec 8, is only available in the 20 cities where candidates could not be rescheduled within the original testing period (28 November – 7 December 2009)”.
The ongoing 10-day examination is going on in 32 cities. But on the extra day, it will be conducted only in 20 cities – Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Cochin, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, New Delhi, Noida, Greater Noida, Pune and Varanasi.
“We understand and regret the additional stress and inconvenience caused to candidates who have not been able to test on their scheduled day due to technical difficulties,” said Ramesh Nava, Prometric vice-president and general manager for Asia Pacific, Japan and Africa.
Meanwhile, several students and coaching centres Friday alleged that aspirants at testing centres have been pushed around and they have to go to far-off cities to sit for the examination. Around 241,000 aspirants have registered to take the staggered exam this year.
TIME, a competitive examination coaching centre in Bhopal, said that students from cities like Bhopal, Faridabad, Mumbai and Hyderabad were bewildered when they received e-mails or text messages informing them that their CAT would be taken at centres in far-off cities.
“Two of our students (in Bhopal) reported yesterday that they got intimation from Prometric that they were being accommodated in cities like Kolkata and Guwhati. They were frantically trying to get in touch with the helpline to tell them at such short notice they can’t reach another city so far off,” Shwetank, TIME director, told IANS.
Thousands of students aspiring for a seat in premier B-schools could not take the CAT which went online for the first time this year. While Prometric blamed technical glitches and virus behind this bungling, students blamed the company and IIMs for serious mismanagement.
Jay Kumar, a final year engineering student from Bhopal who could not take the exam Nov 29 when it was scheduled, said: “I was told then that authorities would tell me in 48 hours about a reallotted test time and place.”
On Thursday, Prometric sent an e-mail to Jay stating that he had been accommodated in a morning test slot Dec 6 — but in Guwhati’s TIT college centre.
Prometric, however, denied this. “Candidates who have not been able to test due to the virus issues are being given new appointments within the same city where they were originally scheduled. Rescheduling to a different city is only done at the request of candidates,” Nava added.