The State’s entrance examination for engineering and pharmacy courses, KEAM, made its inaugural shift to an online format on Wednesday.
On the first day, 14,049 out of 19,035 registered candidates appeared for the engineering entrance examination, marking a 73.8% attendance rate. The computer-based test was administered across 200 examination centres including 198 within 130 institutions in the State, and one each in New Delhi and Mumbai, sources said.
As many as 19,095 candidates are slated to appear for the examination across 201 centres, including one in Dubai, on Thursday.
The engineering entrance examination will run until June 9, while that for students who opted for pharmacy entrance alone will be held on June 10.
Notably, the pilot examination proceeded smoothly without any technical glitches, with centres, including computer laboratories in government and self-financing engineering colleges, functioning seamlessly. Biometric data collection and candidate registration was conducted prior to the their entry into the examination halls.
The office of the Commissioner for Entrance Examinations revealed that a total of 1,13,447 students have registered for the examination. As many as 18,787 computer network nods have been readied up across the State to conduct the online examination with the highest numbers being arranged in Ernakulam (3,749), Thiruvananthapuram (2,747) and Thrissur (2,149).
Candidates were offered the option to take an online practice test to familiarise themselves to the new mode of examination.
