HRD Ministry to Conduct Aptitude Test for Students

As to help students in their career counselling HRD ministry is coming forward to help students get out of the dilemma and pursue a career that would be suitable for them. The HRD ministry is considering conducting an aptitude test that would help the students in cognizing the exact field that they should be choosing based on their aptitude and capabilities.

The HRD ministry is planning to set up a National Testing Service (NTS) that would conduct test similar to that of Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). The test would contain questions on numerical, verbal and diagrammatic reasoning. Initially, the test would be meant for class 11th and 12th students and, later on, students of class 9th and 10th would also be included.

In his Teacher’s Day address to students the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had stated that an aptitude certificate would soon replace the character certificate in schools. The HRD ministry has come out with this plan exactly three months after the Prime Minister’s promise to students.

The National Testing Service (NTS) would be a body very much similar to the US-based Educational Testing Service (ETS) that is the largest educational testing and assessment organization in the world and conducts tests such as GRE and TOEFL in US and abroad. The NTS would start conducting the aptitude tests for students from the 2017-18 academic session.

According to the sources in the ministry a meeting is scheduled in January between the various higher education institutions (IITs and NITs), the regulatory bodies (CBSE and AICTE) and educationists to find out the right way to set up NTS.

A committee known as Ashok Mishra Committee was set up in October this year to recommend ways to overhaul the IIT JEE examination system in order to lessen the burden on the students and reduce their dependence on coaching institutes. Based on the recommendations are given by the committee the HRD ministry has come out with this proposal to conduct aptitude tests as that would help the students in knowing whether they are suitable for engineering/medical examinations or not.

The committee had stated that ” It is believed that the SAT examination is a very good measure of the aptitude of students that get into leading universities and institutes in the USA. SAT is very well tried and tested system and has shown excellent correlation with the ability of students to succeed in college. “

According to Gautam Biswas, the Director of IIT Guwahati,” In the current scenario parents force their child to take such examinations irrespective of his/her aptitude for it. The aptitude test will help the students as well their parents make an informed decision.”

The test would also prevent the parent from spending big amounts on the coaching centres. He said,” Parents spend their hard earned money on sending their children to coaching factories in Kota even if he/she is not meant for the engineering stream.”