Online Billi… meowww!

Some of you may be aware that CAT (Common Admission Test), one of India’s most proficient exams, is going to be online this year. Actually it is not going to be online but will be a computer based test as per the officials. But it doesn’t make any huge difference to a layman. Just yesterday I was reading newspaper and came across its desultory criticism. Desultory, because I didn’t get it.

The criticism talked about the problems that would be faced by aspirants from the villages and jerkwater towns. It posed that how these candidates are going to cope with this leap. Computers are like unseen machines for them.

I have heard people saying and it’s true at least in this case that these newspaper agencies need something, doesn’t matter if it is an electron going wrong way in an atom, to criticize. At the drop of a hat, they will start writing without thinking, without analyzing. I seriously doubt that a person who is a CAT aspirant would have a low IQ or something like that. That he won’t be able to catch all the instructions that will be given on the day of the exam. I don’t think clicking mouse would be more arduous than handling a business firm (That he/she is supposed to do in future). The newspaper agency didn’t even bother to think this much before publishing.

Now some of you may still not agree and still be thinking that its hard for the novices to get around this computer thing, but the following little story will clear the air.

I don’t know about Chandigarh but in Haryana, the test for driving license is computer-based. When I took the test, we were a bunch of around 15 candidates and most of them were villagers. The instructor diligently flashed every instruction that was essential. All the candidates easily attempted the questions and ended up getting their licenses.

All I am saying it’s not challenging to check the radio-button but which radio-button to mark is going to take the hell out of a candidate. The base of this censure was a complete mess. Instead of lambasting officials for making CAT online, news agencies should encourage the government to help these candidates if they feel like. In my view, government should conduct seminars for these aspirants making them understand the basic use of computers like filling a form, clicking a radio button etc. It won’t take much time, money or efforts. If we can spend money making useless statues in the country, we can do this too.

For the first time in the history of India, a national exam, with over 2.5 lakhs aspirants is going to be online. About 95,000 candidates took the CAT in 2003, the number rose to about 250,000 in 2008, indicating a whopping 163 percent rise. The officials have taken this praiseworthy step in order to make things easy for themselves as well as for candidates. Now the candidates won’t have to waste their precious time filling small bubbles. There will be more accuracy in screening the exams. In the long run this will significantly reduce the cost of administering these exams since manual checking is time consuming. If test scores are made available immediately after the test then students can apply to colleges in a more targeted manner. There are many more advantages if we think about it comprehensively.

We all talk about poor standards of education in India. But we are all reluctant to changes. We all want things to pick-up but at the same time we narrow our vision.

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