Given a choice, Indian students would rather go for paper based tests than a computer-based one. The test-takers’ profile of the Management Aptitude Test (MAT) held on September 6th, 2009 say it all. MAT gave the candidates a choice between taking up the offline and computer-based examination; out of the 30,000 total candidates who registered for the test, only 3,000 opted for the computer based version. Finally the online test was held only in ten out of the scheduled 30 cities which included most of the tier one cities such as Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai and Calcutta, with maximum people opting for online in Delhi and Bangalore. Interestingly Mumbai did not opt for online but Kanpur did.

Many reasons can be attributed to such a low number of students going for the computer-based examination. One of them can be their lack of familiarity on the computer-based media since the coaching institutes have only recently introduced the computer based environment for testing. All India Management Association’s (AIMA) Wg Cdr V S Bejoy, controller of examination of MAT says, “The numbers will increase once the students gear up for the computer-based CAT exam to be held in November and December 2009″. According to him, since this is the first time a computer based exam is being conducted on a national scale, the number of students will gradually increase once computer based testing becomes more popular in India.

Exposure to computers shouldn’t be hard to understand. Computer penetration in India is low, only 2 percent people currently own a computer. Many of them visit cyber cafes for their computer or Internet needs; the needs are being as basic as sending and receiving emails and surfing social networking sites. Even in schools, according to a report by the Times of India, computer penetration is only around 13.5 percent and yes, only 6.8 million people in a population of a billion have a broadband connection. Some time back, an MBA aspirant in Lucknow had told me that the students in her coaching institute from the adjoining areas did not check for the solutions of the tests held in the institute as they were put up online!

With a country grappling with infrastructure issues almost daily, one cannot really blame the students for preferring the offline over the computer-based. In the ongoing CAT computer-based registration too, students have faced many problems. Although many of them could have been avoided had the students read the instructions carefully, the last thing that the designers of the registration page should have banked on was the applicant’s caution. However, bad infrastructure may not be the only reason for students to opt for a paper based test. Lack of knowledge about the computer based test may hold them back too. Students would rather take the tried and tested way and be sure of an MBA seat than risk for something unknown.

In spite of many roadblocks, AIMA, the organization behind MAT thinks it can take the country to the road for computer based testing; since they have successfully conducted one on a small sample, the trick lies in extrapolating the experience, which will be done in some time.