Prometric gets its act together

Prometric — the US-based testing agency that conducted the Common Admission Test (CAT) last year — is now pulling up its socks to deliver CAT 2010 successfully and without any glitches. “We are all geared up for CAT 2010 and the biggest improvements will be in three key areas of site readiness, registration and test delivery,” says Soumitra Roy, managing director of Prometric India.

Site readiness refers to verification of the site infrastructure which will be done prior to selecting the test centre. Prometric has laid down criteria like physical infrastructure, layout of test centre, seating arrangement and power backup which must be met by the centres.

“We have not compromised on the number of cities and though the test will be held in 32 cities like last year, the number of centres it will be held in is fewer because of the extended testing window. This will ensure a much better student-experience and a better work station to supervisor ratio,” added Roy.

In fact, Prometric is0 in talks with firms involved in the testing business and with a pan India presence to be its information technology (IT) partners. In 2009, NIIT was the company’s sole IT partner.

Though it will continue to use public infrastructure, the test centres will be quarantined till the exam actually takes place. The test centre network will be isolated and the company will lay down cables to only serve the purpose of CAT 2010. “We will take over the centres and they will be completely under our control. We have extended the duration to include technical readiness and operational trails,” he said.

As for the registration and scheduling, Prometric has engaged a US based global usability consultant who will allow for easier navigation through the application forms. Unlike last year, which saw virus attacks and systems crashing, the actual test delivery will see the use of licensed operating systems and updated anti-virus software. Roy said Prometric’s investigation of the last year’s fiasco revealed that many colleges (which were test centres) were using dated anti-virus software.

“We will be giving a more intensive training to the test centre staff who will then undergo a certification programme,” explained Roy.

With all these preparations, how much will the costs escalate? “Huge investments are being done in capital, revenue, administration, planning and operations. However, the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs)are asking us to do that and are drawing the budgets. All the agreements will be finalised by the end of this month and IIMs are expected to publish the first advertisement for the test by August-end,” says Roy.