MeritTrac unveils Pariksha:
A Next-Generation offering for high-stakes, large-scale examinations
? Launches Pariksha as an integrated examinations management service offering, capable of securely administering over 1,50,000 Online tests in a single day across the country
? Constitutes a Vision Panel comprising of eminent Educationists to guide the company in its endeavors
New Delhi, 20th November 2009: MeritTrac, India’s largest Testing company unveiled its next-generation service offering, “Pariksha” for delivering high-stakes, large-scale exams across the country in a secure environment. Continuing on its journey of innovation after winning the NASSCOM Innovation Award in 2008, MeritTrac has unveiled Pariksha as a service offering built on an innovative technology platform that comprehensively covers the entire spectrum of examination delivery processes, supported by a huge network of 50,000 testing terminals in 185 cities across India. This offering is backed by stringent ISO 9001:2008 quality standards that MeritTrac has recently got certified.
Addressing the media Mr. Madan Padaki, Co-Founder and CEO, MeritTrac, said: “Pariksha will usher in a new era for high-stakes, large-scale examination delivery – both for the Education sector and the Government/PSU exams. Security, Accuracy, Fairness and Access are key parameters for any exam process and our Pariksha suite of offerings is leveraging technology, increased reach and quality processes to deliver large-scale exams that are 100% secure, 100% accurate and better candidate-experience “
As a pre-cursor to a national roll-out, MeritTrac had partnered with Gujarat Technological University, Government of Gujarat, to conduct the Gujarat Common Entrance Test (GCET 2009) online in July this year. Over a period of 4 days, 23,000 candidates successfully appeared for this online test which was conducted in 37 centers across 11 cities in Gujarat, deployed over a network of 2100 terminals. “This entire project was a great success – it dispelled a lot of myths associated with large-scale public examinations and paved the way for launching Pariksha on a nation-wide scale.” Padaki commented. Incidentally, the GCET 2009 project won the jury award for the Best e-enabled University project at the e-India Awards in September 2009
In the Indian higher education system, MeritTrac estimates that 150+ million exams are conducted every year – including entrance and final semester exams. With the thrust by MHRD on dramatically increasing the gross enrolment ratio (GER), the number of exams is also slated to grow exponentially. Barring a few exceptions, almost all the exams are currently held in an offline (paper-pencil mode), despite its limitations and constraints. In managing such large number of exams, there is a growing acceptance amongst educational institutions that migration of these exams online becomes an imperative over the next few years. MeritTrac estimates that at least 25% of these exams will be technology-enabled over the next 3 years. However, there are current challenges in online exams that need to be overcome like – secure reliable physical and internet infrastructure, equating of test forms for multiple batches, user-friendly, easy technology interfaces and audit trails for RTI queries.
Having successfully delivered 500,000+ high-stakes online exams over the last 2 years, MeritTrac has perfected the process of online delivery of exams and has successfully addressed all the challenges of online exams in its model of examinations. The technology platform has been built to address the unique context of Indian examinations – including internet-lite mode of delivery and redundancies for power failures. The security and control process puts the Controller of Exams firmly in charge of the exam process, while significantly reducing the workload. MeritTrac R&D team, headed by Dr. V. Natarajan – one of the foremost testing experts in the country, has created a scientific, legally-defensible process of equating test papers for multiple batches.
“With Pariksha, we now have a complete end-to-end offering that addresses the key concerns of all stakeholders and at a scale where some of the largest exams in the country like AIEEE can be completely done online within a week” Padaki said.
In order to create future-ready solutions and innovative offerings for the education sector, MeritTrac has constituted a Education Vision Panel which has leading luminaries of the education sector in India – Dr. Arun Nigavekar (Former Chairman, UGC), Dr. VS Ramamurthy (Director NIAS, Chairman BoG, IIT-Delhi), Dr. R Natarajan (Former Chairman, AICTE), Dr. KRS Murthy (Former Director, IIM Bangalore), Prof. KK Aggarwal (Former VC, IP University, Delhi) & Dr. Rajen Saxena – VC, NMIMS University.
“We are delighted to have the guidance of such an eminent Vision Group. With their support and the internal expertise of our teams, we have lined up many more projects and initiatives over the next 6 months which can truly re-define the education sector – we are geared for exciting times ahead!” said Padaki.
MeritTrac is India’s Largest Testing & Skills Assessment Company. We provide innovative examination process and assessment solutions to Educational Institutions, Government/ PSU sector and leading Corporate entities.
MeritTrac will deliver around 3.5 million exams in FY2009-10 and has delivered close to 8 million exams till date – both in a paper-pencil mode and online mode. With 300+ full-time employees, we are headquartered in Bangalore and have a presence in 16 cities in India, including a network of company-owned testing centres. With our own test research & test development teams, we have created a battery of 300+ validated tests spanning areas like communication skills, general abilities, domain and behavioural skills. Our test delivery teams have delivered tests in over 250+ cities in the country – with the distinction of having delivered 1 million exams in a period of 10 days across 175+ cities. MeritTrac has created India’s largest test center network of 50,000 terminals with Authorised Pariksha Centres being activated in 185 cities in India.
In the Education sector, MeritTrac has worked with several prestigious institutions like Gujarat Technological University, IIIT-Bangalore, Manipal University, Sikkim Manipal University, NMIMS University and Indian Institute of Banking & Finance. Some of its clients in the Government/PSU include Govt. of Orissa, Govt. of Gujarat and over 12 large Public Sector Units. HP, Microsoft, Accenture, Cognizant, Wipro, ICICI Bank, Titan, Axis Bank, Jindal Steel and over 200 organisations use our assessments for pre-recruitment & employee assessments. MeritTrac is also the exclusive assessment partner to NASSCOM for its NAC-Tech certification Program and is an accredited Assessment body for the Modular Employable Skills (MES) program by DGET, Ministry of Labour & Employment.
MeritTrac is an investee company of the Manipal Education.
MeritTrac is also a full-member of Association of Test Publishers (ATP), US which is one of the prestigious associations of test publishing companies – the first company from India to be admitted to this association, and an active member of NASSCOM, CII and FICCI-Higher Education Network.
MeritTrac has been an acknowledged leader and pioneer in the field of testing and has been bestowed several awards & recognitions like the eIndia ICT Award for the online Gujarat Common Entrance Test (GCET) project – awarded jointly with Gujarat Technological University and NASSCOM IT Innovation Award 2007
Researched by Maninder
