"Due to last year's bad reputation, I assigned [the Higher Education Commission] to regain the trust of students and parents in the admissions system. I can assure that this year everything will proceed without a hitch," he said.

The system was now running quite smoothly, he said while inspecting an examination centre for the Advanced National Educational Test (A-Net) set up at Sarawittaya School.

Yesterday was the first day for sitting the A-Net this year.

So far there has been no problem, he said.

Although one venue was cancelled, the test-takers were able to go to a new site with assistance from the Higher Education Commission, he said.

A-Net testing ends today, while the Ordinary National Educational Test (O-Net) was held two weeks ago.

In the university-admission criteria introduced by the Education Ministry last year, the O-Net and A-Net scores were given heavy weighting.

Last year, the Higher Education Commission and the ministry as well as the National Institute of Educational Testing Service came under fire when the system suffered multiple crashes.

Every step in administering the tests - from the application process to the answer sheets to scoring, from arranging the test centres to the places where the results were posted - was plagued with problems.