It will soon change the face of Indian examination. MeritTrac, India’s largest testing company unveiled its next-generation service November 19 offering,


With the new service, MeritTrac hopes to convert a lot of the offline exams into an on line process, but retaining some of the exams as the way it is, of course with the student’s feasibility. Biju Zachariah, Vice President (Education Business) corroborates: “We want to transform the kind of exams that have been conducted in all these years in the country, and make it more efficient and transperant, which we think online examinations are the best way to do it. But for exams which are better done offline, it will be retained the same.”   

But why online? “It’s more efficient and a lot of transparency can be maintained. There is, in fact, zero possibility for anything to go wrong. In today’s examinations, that is something that cannot be assured of, no matter how high level the security is. But here, it’s like even the paper setter won’t have an idea as to what are the final questions that have been shortlisted from the lot,” said Zachariah. MeritTrac’s new initiative, Pariksha, is a service that’s been built on an innovative technology platform which promises to comprehensively cover the entire spectrum of examination delivery processes.

Supported by a huge network of more than 50,000 testing terminals in 185 cities across India, MeritTrac is hopeful that it will be able to make the whole examination process more efficient in years to come. Madan Padaki, the Co-Founder and the C.E.O., explains, “We are just looking at the process level. Our objective is to make exams more efficient, with greater level of transparency in it. Examinations by the respective centres will still be controlled by the controller of the respective boards.” He added: “We have already spoken 150 odd universities from across the country, and we have been getting a lot of positive responses from these boards.”

Cost advantage seems to be another factor that the company is looking at. “One might pay a bit more during online tests, but if one looks at with the wide range of options that we give them, I think the money part is negligible. Here, it’s a one-time payment. You just pay the fees, and there is no other paper work. All one needs to do, is come and sit for the exams. Everything you do is in the computer,” said Padaki.     

Having already successfully delivered 500,000 high-stakes online exams over the last two years, Madan feels that the company has perfected the process of online delivery of exams and has successfully addressed all the challenges of online exams in model of examinations. “We have all technologies in place which is why we give 100 per cent assurance that all exams that we conduct will be a success, and our past records prove that.” With already exams like the Gujarat Common Entrance Test (GCET), and universities like the Manipal opting for new system of examination from MeritTrac, the company is hopeful that about the years to come. 

Further to this, Padaki said, “With Pariksha, we now have a complete end-to-end offering that addresses the key concerns of all the stakeholders and at a scale where some of the largest exams in the country like AIEEE can be completely done online within a week.  

MeritTrac is one of India’s largest Testing and Skills assessment companies. The company has delivered around 3.5 million exams in the fiscal year 2009-10 and has delivered close to 8 million exams so far – both in paper-pencil mode and online mode.