Manage your resources

Updated on: Monday, April 05, 2010

Come May and students will be getting ready for MAT — the Management Aptitude Test. MAT gives students the opportunity to be admitted into over 450 management institutes spread across the country. Usually conducted every quarter by the All India Management Association or AIMA, which is the apex body for The Centre for Management Services (CMS), which conducts the Management Aptitude Test (MAT) across India, the USP of the exam is its repeated periodicity. All institutes participating in MAT are either AICTE approved or affiliated to a university. This management test was the first to be awarded the ISO 9001:2000 certification, thus ensuring a steady growth in the number of Indian institutes that accept its scores. Approved by the HRD Ministry, MAT is conducted in all major cities in India and in select cities abroad.

Now with most tests going online, is MAT going the same way? “Keeping various factors in mind, we have decided to continue MAT in both paper-pencil and online formats. We have observed that the majority of students prefer to sit for the paper-pencil format,” said CMS Director VS Bejoy.

Bejoy’s decision comes after the online format which was introduced in September 2009 saw a decrease in the number of students opting to take MAT in this mode.

“We introduced the online format in September 2009 and since then we have tried it three times (September 2009, December 2009, February 2010). But only 10 per cent of the 200,000 students opted for the online test whereas the remaining appeared only through the paper-pencil format,” clarified Bejoy.

Even though the software for the online version of MAT, which was developed by the Bengaluru based company Eduquity, presented no problems, Bejoy was keen to continue both formats of the test.

AIMA has appealed to the Punjab government to consider MAT scores before admitting students in state management colleges, IANS reports. Stated Bejoy, “In a recent development, the Haryana and Uttrakhand governments have scrapped their state level MBA entrance exams and are considering MAT scores for admissions to their affiliated colleges.’’

Manage your resources

More Education news