Aptitude tests for Class 10: Maharashtra education department extends deadline by 13 days

The state education department has extended the deadline for mobile phone-based aptitude tests from January 20 to February 2.

The test is for Class 10 students and this is the first time it is being conducted using smartphones. Students can get their test reports on http://www.mahacareermitra.in after their exams.

So far, 1.61 million Class 10 students have appeared for the aptitude tests conducted by the state education department in association with Shyamchi Aai Foundation.

“So far, 99% of the students have completed taking their aptitude tests. We have now extended the deadline mainly for students who are appearing for exams privately,” said Sheetal Bapat, founder-director of the Shyamchi Aai Foundation.

Introduced three years ago, the aptitude tests are designed by the education department to help students pick careers after passing the board exams.

The 90-minute exercise evaluates students on various aptitudes.

Previously, students were only tested on the basis of their interest in a particular subject and the tests were administered online with students using school computers. From the current academic year, schools were instructed to use smartphones that had the test app installed in it. This year, students will get their results immediately after the board exams in March. Since this is also the first year that an aptitude test is being conducted along with interest tests, students will also get a four-paged report.

Initially, there were concerns about the availability of mobile phones, but data revealed that around 9,50,000 phones were made available for the test. Schools said that the process was glitch free.

“It was even better than computers because it was user friendly and quick,” said a suburban school principal.