IIMs to export CAT to foreign B-schools

The brutally competitive Common Admission Test (CAT) is all set for a crossover. The Indian Institutes of Management (IIM), which conduct the entrance exam, have been approached by business schools in Sri Lanka to do a CAT for their candidates as well, a plan that will take off next year. "We refused to conduct the CAT for them this year, but will do so in 2011,'' confirmed Himanshu Rai, convener of CAT-2010.
Indeed, Rai had hinted at such a development last month in an article he wrote for a financial daily. "CAT ought to be taken across the frontiers since that would make it more viable while bringing in the best global practices,'' he had written. "The road is steep but the IIMs have always had the will and the capability. They have led others to global standards and they will continue to do so.''
Although the Indian market is shrinking, the IIMs feel that the CAT is likely to get fatter as it flies out. "Apart from B-schools in Colombo, several countries in South-East Asia have shown interest in admitting students through the exam. But to begin with, we will start in Sri Lanka,'' Rai said.
In 2009, the test graduated to a computer-based one. The CAT in foreign lands, too, will follow the existing Indian model. The IIMs will hire an agency to conduct the exam; questions, however, will be designed by them, for which the IIMs have been thinking of setting up a company under Section 25 of the Indian Companies Act, 1956. "Setting up a separate entity will ensure that a handful of IIM faculty members are de-linked temporarily from teaching,'' said an IIM faculty.
Source:TOI