Largest Online Test: Indian Railway sets world record (VIDEO)
NEW DELHI, India -- Aiming at eliminating the scope for malpractices in its recruitment process, Indian Railways is conducting the world's largest online examination to fill up over 18,000 vacancies in various categories; the online examination is being undertaken by the Railway Recruitment Boards to fill up 18,252 graduate-level Group-3 posts, thus setting the new world record for the Largest Online Test, according to the World Record Academy. Photo: Aiming at eliminating the scope for malpractices in its recruitment process, Indian Railways is conducting the world's largest online examination to fill up over 18,000 vacancies in various categories. (enlarge photo)
The Guinness World Records world record for the largest online marketing seminar involved 10,899 participants and was achieved by HubSpot (USA) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, on 23 August 2011.
Guinness World Records also recognized the world record for the largest online quiz; it involved 1,023 participants and was achieved by Vodafone Turkey Sales Channel, in Istanbul, Turkey, on 30 December 2011. 1023 sales representatives from 42 cities in Turkey took part in the quiz which consisted of 45 questions.
The online examination is being undertaken by the Railway Recruitment Boards to fill up 18,252 graduate-level Group-3 posts, including assistant station master, goods guard, inquiry-cum-reservation clerk, traffic and commercial apprentices and junior accounts assistant.
A whopping 92 lakh (920,000.00) candidates had applied for the jobs, of whom 2.73 lakh (273,000.00) qualified the preliminary exam and were called for written test on January 17-19, said a senior Railway Ministry official.
Earlier, recruitment examinations used to be conducted manually, but the railways had to abandon the manual system and opt for online mode after a few alleged incidents of question paper leak.
Describing it as the "largest online examination in the world", the official said that in order to ensure complete transparency, the railways has introduced the system of showing answer papers online to examinees one week after the examination.
"We have shown the examinees the answers given by them and the correct answers of the questions. We had also given them opportunities to raise objections, if any, till January 30," he said.
The next stage for selection is the psychological tests for assistant station masters and typing test for senior clerks and the appointment letters are expected to be given to successful candidates by May this year.
The railways will begin next recruitment drive for about 20,000 vacancies, including in the posts of assistant loco pilots and technical supervisor, in the next phase.
Indian Railways (reporting mark IR) is a state-owned railway company, responsible for rail transport in India. It is owned and operated by the Government of India through the Ministry of Railways.
It is one of the world's largest railway networks comprising 117,996 km (73,319 mi) of track over a route of 66,030 km (41,030 mi) and 7,137 stations.
