Ok Maverick_callsign has given me the Link to the news article so this thread is Unlocked.
However given the way Media hypes any piece of "news" it gets hold of.............try and discuss this issue with a pinch of salt
and avoid jumping to conclusions
.
@Maverick- Next time kindly post the source of the news as well as any available link while attempting a discussion on Newspaper articles
and thanks for the links
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/a...how/969336.cms
Are IIMs letting go of prized CATch?
RAJA BOSE
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2004 10:00:01 PM ]
AHMEDABAD: The IIMs, that had till now resisted any move to give away control of the Common Admission Test to an outside body, seem to have given up, apparently after a series of "mishaps". In the wake of last year's question paper leak and this year's gaffe when results got posted on the website well before they were declared, the IIMs have decided to outsource a chunk of the work in conducting the 2005 CAT.
The six IIMs — Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Lucknow, Kozhikode and Indore — have come out with an advertisement, calling for "expressions of interest", seeking the "services" of an organisation. The advertisement mentions that CAT "attracts a large number of candidates (in excess of 1,50,000)".
"This is exactly why the CAT needs to be conducted by a body on the lines of the UPSC and not left to a group of professors whose decisions have a bearing on the future of so many students," says a HRD ministry official involved in the formation of a 15-member committee last year to work out the details of a new "centralised" examination system that will include CAT.
Till now, it was the CAT Group — comprising the chairpersons of admission committees of the IIMs — that carried out all the functions. Many feel had it not been for the defeat of the NDA in the Lok Sabha polls, this year's CAT may well have been conducted by a central body.
According to the advertisement, the organisation will have to undertake on a "national scale" the "printing and processing of application forms for the test and undertake associated tasks like issuing hall tickets" and "organising venues and conducting the test on a specified day in about 25 cities of the country." Chairman of IIM-Ahmedabad admission committee and a CAT Group member Vijaya Sherry Chand refused to divulge the reason behind the move. "I can talk only if you are calling in response to the advertisement," Chand told TOI. Attempts to contact IIM-A director Bakul Dholakia failed.
The CAT first came in the eye of a storm when a letter, written on an IIM-A letterhead, to former Union HRD minister MM Joshi alleged that two IIM-A officials, sent on invigilation duty to Pune for the CAT in December 1998, allegedly took their sons along. The letter alleged that a day before the exams, the invigilators broke open the sealed cover containing the question papers and allowed their sons to take a look. Five years later, students and parents across the country were shaken by the news of the CAT paper being leaked.
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