If anybody other than the man who leaked the CAT question papers are panicking, it’s the students. With confusion about a possible re-examination date which might clash with other examination schedules, it was like a nightmare for many.
“Some of my friends have a feeling that they could have cracked the examination this time. They might not get a good score in the next exam. Some of them are really in despair,” said Sounak Chatterjee, a CAT examinee. Most of the examinees feel that it was unfair to cancel the examinations at all other exam centres after the paper leak was detected in Delhi and Pune.
“Due to a handful of touts, thousands of examinees suffered. I have other management exams lined up. Most of my friends have already left the city to appear for the examinations,” said another examinee.
But it seems that there’s finally some good news at the end of the road for the students. Sources belonging to the teaching faculty of the top management institutes in the city confirmed that CAT is being re-scheduled at a date that will not clash with the examination date of any other top management institute. Efforts are also on to allow sufficient “transit time” to the students, so that they don’t face a problem in getting back to the previous examination centre.
“The re-examination will be scheduled in four to six weeks time. Efforts are also on to provide sufficient time to the students so that they can travel back to the city and can take the exam without a problem. But yes, the standard of the exam will remain the same,” said a senior professor of a city management institute, adding: “Talks are on to ensure that the students don’t have to pay a single penny extra for re-exam. However, new roll-numbers might be allotted.”
Some of the management institutes, which take in students through the CAT, rushed in to salvage the situation with similar announcements. “The scam came to me as a shocker. But the students should not be penalised for that. We have decided that our institute won’t charge any money again for those who have already paid for the examination. I feel that the CAT exam committee should also come out with a similar announcement,” said professor Ashoke Dutta, director of Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management (IISWBM).
Some of the senior professors, of course, felt that the re-scheduling of exams might prove to be a boon for some examinees. “I feel that some of the students should take this as a chance to fine-tune their preparation for the examination. Who knows, most of them may get a better score than what they would have got in the previous examination,” said Mousumi Ghosh, senior professor of Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.
But that the scam has broken the myth of a “fool-proof” system prompted some senior faculty members to advocate for a uniform all India level test for all management institutes. “May be there’s an urgent need of devising a fool proof system that will not see a repetition of these incidents in the future,” said Somnath Mukherjee, director of a city management institute.
