New Delhi, May 16: The IIMs picked global testing service provider Prometric to conduct the first computerised Common Admission Test (CAT) despite their own concerns even on the day of selection over the firm’s inexperience at conducting such large-scale tests.

A 15-member panel of all seven IIM directors and other CAT organisers were troubled by Prometric’s inexperience at conducting such tests, but picked the firm impressed by its presentation to them during the selection meeting.

The Telegraph has accessed the minutes of the IIM selection team’s meetings in Bangalore on November 20 and 21, 2008, where Prometric was picked out of four short-listed candidates, and which reveal their concerns over the firm’s inexperience.

“Lack of exposure for a large-scale test,” was noted by the panel as a key demerit against granting the contract to Prometric, when it summed up the proposals presented by the contenders.

A total of 2.42 lakh students had applied for the November-December 2009 computerised CAT, which was ravaged by a slew of technical failures. About 10,000 students were hit by the glitches and had to eventually take a retest in January-end 2010.

Both the IIMs and Prometric have on numerous occasions pointed to the scale of the test as a reason to explain the failures.

But the minutes of the meeting where Prometric was selected suggest that the IIMs were not unaware of the problems that could arise because of the firm’s “lack of exposure” in conducting large-scale tests.

Instead, they overlooked their own concerns while scoring the contender service providers on a total of eight parameters, including perceived potential for scalability and security of the test, understanding of IIM goals and the fees demanded.

Prometric was picked after the panel — called the sub-committee on computerising CAT — rated it higher overall (60 out of 80) than the other three contenders.

Even after concluding that Prometric would be awarded the contract at its meeting on November 21, 2008, the panel retained concerns about conducting a glitch-free CAT in 2009, the minutes reveal. It suggested that the IIMs keep open the “last moment” option of a pencil-paper test as a backup plan, and that they should be ready to renegotiate with Prometric in such a scenario.

“By second week of May 2009, if for any reason it is felt that the computerisation process is not gathering pace, IIMs may revert to a paper-and-pencil test.

“Moreover, if due to any unforeseen circumstances, computerised CAT has to be cancelled at the last moment, IIMs would conduct a new test within 2.5 months of the originally scheduled CAT 2009. In either case the contract with Prometric will have to be renegotiated,” the minutes noted.

The minutes — accessed using the Right to Information Act — also reveal that the panel did not consider two of the other contenders short-listed inexperienced at large-scale testing.

The two firms were the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), which conducts the GMAT used by top business schools in the US and Europe to pick students. The other was Eduquity, which conducts a national computerised admission test for BITS, Pilani.

The fourth firm shortlisted — out of a total of 10 firms that had initially submitted proposals — was the Mumbai-based Attest Testing Services Limited.

Prometric, a subsidiary of the US-based Educational Testing Services, has been conducting computerised tests like the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) in India and several other countries for many years now.

But unlike the CAT, for which over 20,000 students appeared every day during the 10-day window, fewer students appear at any one point in time for the GRE and other tests that Prometric conducts.