The decision to hold a pan-India Common Management Admission Test (CMAT) was taken
at the most recent AICTE executive council meeting.
To cut down the multiple entrance exams for admission to
management courses across the country, the All-India Council for Technical Education,
the umbrella body for professional courses, has decided to conduct a common admission
test from 2012-13. No longer will lakhs of students be forced to sit
for over a dozen exams for admission to the highly aspirational MBA and its poorer
cousin the postgraduate diploma in management. The decision to hold a pan-India
Common Management Admission Test (CMAT) was taken at the most recent AICTE executive
council meeting. While the CMAT will be one of the entrance exams to be held in
2012, the Council wants all its colleges and institutes to admit students based
on their CMAT scores from 2013.
Almost every college was conducting an entrance exam. Moreover, each state government
has its own entrance tests, and private associations too have their own exams. In
principle, the CMAT will be a test for all AICTE-approved institutes, and it will
reduce the stress and financial burden on students, said AICTE chairman S S Mantha.
However, the Indian Institutes of Management, which are independent and autonomous
B-schools, will continue to conduct the CAT (common admission test).The deemed universities
of the country will also hold their individual entrance tests. But admission to
4,000 colleges that offer an MBA and another 500 which run diploma programmes will
take place on the basis of the CMAT.
We still have to work out the modalities of conducting the CMAT. But having so many
exams, all of varied difficulty levels, also raises concerns among the quality of
students who enter this professional course, added Mantha.
It is for the first time that the AICTE has spoken of holding an entrance exam;
to date, it has largely been an approval-seeking body for new colleges and institutes
wanting to expand student intake.
The Management Aptitude Test, which is taken by 3.85 lakh students every year, is
currently the largest B-School entrance test. Hari Krishna Maram, governing council
member of AIMA which holds the MAT, said
I welcome the idea of a single entrance exam for management courses in the interest
of students. The government has been talking about it for quite some time now but
the idea hasn’t taken off. I do not know if a single exam will work since different
universities have different admission schedules. MAT on the other hand is conducted
four times in a year and this helps students to take the exam whenever they are
free.
Courtesy: Times of India
