The Indian Scholastic Assessment Test, or Ind-SAT, in its first, has been conducted on July 22 under the ‘Study in India' Programme. Ind-SAT 2020 was held in remote-proctored mode and was administered by the National Testing Agency, or NTA. Around five thousand students from Nepal, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Sri-Lanka, Kenya, Zambia, Indonesia and Mauritius took Ind-SAT 2020.
As per a statement the eligibility test of Ind-SAT was held in 12 countries on a pilot basis this year. There are plans to extend this to other countries in the future.
Ind-SAT is an eligibility test for granting scholarships and admissions to foreign students to study in selected Indian universities under the Study in India programme. Ind-SAT is designed to measure the scholastic capabilities of students seeking admission in educational institutes in India. The scores obtained in Ind-SAT will serve as a criterion to shortlist the students for the allocation of scholarships in the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.
“The Ministry of HRD [Human Resource Development] conducted the first ever Indian Scholastic Assessment (Ind-SAT) Test 2020 under its 'Study in India' programme yesterday. EdCIL (India) Limited, a PSU under MHRD and the implementing agency of SII handled the registrations and other aspects of the examination,” added the statement.
The Finance Minister, as part of the budget speech this year, had announced that the Ind-SAT exam is proposed to be held in Asian and African countries, for benchmarking foreign candidates who receive scholarships for studying in Indian higher education centers.
The selection of the students is based on their merit in the Class 12 exams or school leaving exam. The top 2,000 students are given scholarships, while some others are given fee discounts by the institutions. Around 780 students had taken admission under the programme during its first year 2018-19. While, in the second year this number rose to about 3,200.
