THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In a major shift, the entrance examination for engineering and pharmacy courses in the state is doing away with the traditional pen-and-paper mode in favour of computer-based evaluation from this year. Around 85,000 students have registered for this year’s Kerala Engineering, Architecture and Medical Entrance Exam (KEAM), which will be conducted as a single paper over six sessions from June 1 to 9.
Commissioner for Entrance Examinations (CEE) Sudhir K said KEAM 2024 will be conducted in 230 centres in the state, and in Delhi, Mumbai and Dubai. “We are close to finalising the exam venues after undertaking several rounds of tests and physical verification of infrastructure facilities. C-DIT is our technological partner in this massive exercise,” he told TNIE.
Except for KEAM, the other exams conducted by CEE were computer-based. The large number of candidates were the sole reason for the government to continue with the pen-and-paper mode. However, with national engineering entrance exams such as
JEE shifting to a computer-based format, it was decided to adopt the same scheme for KEAM.
Till now, students used to record answers to multiple-choice questions on an optical mark recognition (OMR) sheet. Each OMR sheet is scanned to prepare the score, which is a time-consuming process. With the adoption of computer-based mode, the publishing of exam results can be speeded up.
KEAM 2024, which was initially proposed to be held from the second week of May, had to be postponed to avoid a possible clash with the schedule of the Central University Entrance Test (CUET) for admission to undergraduate courses.
Despite the deferment, officials are hopeful of publishing the results well before June 20 this year.
What’s changed?
Unlike in previous years when KEAM was conducted over two papers – one in the forenoon and another afternoon – this year’s computer-based test will comprise just a single paper with questions covering physics, chemistry and mathematics for engineering aspirants. Candidates who have applied for the pharmacy course need only attempt the test comprising physics and chemistry questions. Candidates will be allotted one of the several sessions scheduled from June 1 to 9.
“Though initially planned over two sessions a day, we have now rescheduled it to just one session from 10 am to 1 pm. This is to ensure that any technical issues in the first session do not impact the subsequent session. The plan is to conduct the test for 21,000 candidates every day,” the CEE said. Several sets of question papers have been prepared, which will be randomly assigned for each session.
The official added that June 10 has been kept as a reserve day, for factoring in various emergencies that may occur during the process. The venue and time schedule will be intimated through candidate admit cards, which will be available for download by May 20. To ensure that candidates are neither benefited nor disadvantaged due to the examinations over multiple sessions, a normalisation procedure has been adopted.
Pros and cons
KEAM, which used to be of five hours’ duration in total, has now been reduced to a single test of three hours for engineering and one-and-a-half hours for pharmacy, said Rajoo Krishnan, former joint commissioner for entrance examinations. The number of questions have come down from 240 to 150 for engineering and 75 for pharmacy, he pointed out.
“In the earlier OMR-based evaluation, entries once made could not be changed. In the case of computer-based testing, however, candidates can review all the entries till the time of final submission,” he said.
However, variation in the standards of questions asked in different sessions could lead to comparisons by students and the normalisation procedure to address it needs to be convincing enough, Krishnan said.
Addressing security
As higher educational institutions with the best technical infrastructure facilities have been zeroed in as exam centres, officials do not see technical glitches marring the exam’s smooth conduct. The exam will be conducted through dedicated servers with advanced security features to prevent any sort of external interference.
As part of ensuring additional security and curbing impersonation, biometric verification and facial image capture of the candidates will be carried out. Moreover, all exam centres will be under CCTV surveillance, another first-of-its-kind initiative for KEAM.
In case the computer/mouse allotted to any candidate malfunctions anytime during the test, he/she will be immediately allotted another computer and the time lost due to this will be adjusted in the server so as to give the candidate the full allotted time.