With the increase of online entrance exams in India, there has been a significant decline in pen pencil examinations. The recent entry to online exam is AIEEE exams which are likely to go online by 2011 for the urban and suburban candidates along with pen pencil paper exams.
PK Bose, the director of National Institute of Technology (NIT), Agartala said “ the exam will be conducted by the CBSE Board”.
CEO of Merit Trac Service Private LTD. Mr. Madan Padki has said that in the next five years 68% of exams that are conducted in India are likely to go online. With the rising trend of online examinations, Bangalore city based college like Christ University is planning to start online entrance exams in the near future depending on which course gets the maximum number of hits. Admission coordinator of the university Kerwin says “the advantage of these exams is that the results are published instantly. We have already conducted an internal online exam which was a huge success. We are looking at more such exams”.
According to Madan Padki online exams have challenges too such as infrastructure in terms of terminals and Internet connectivity. You require appropriate technology or software for the exams. Besides this, science of testing and question banks for multiple batches should be put in place. He also added, in online exam there must be a quality process and quality check.
Manipal University in 2005 had adopted online test entrance examination for all India Level Admission to the university. GK Prabhu, registrar of Manipal University considers online exams a great boon as the candidate gets time to choose his time slot, date and center according to his convenience. The post-graduate level is open for 20 days while for undergraduate it is for 40 days. He believes online exam ensure transparency and no malpractices though initially they faced some internet connectivity issue but it was resolved later.
The Merit Trac Survey shows that 84% of all the VCs/ registrars have shown their interest in the concept of using technology in the exams. 77% of all VCs/registrars have considered introducing online examination while 50% of the respondents commented they will do this in the next 6 to 36 months.