The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) has launched a new system of remote exam taking in order to provide a “new flexibility” for ACCA students around the world.
The new system will “use the latest technology” to enable the remote invigilation of the ACCA Qualification exams in light of ongoing disruption caused by the pandemic.
Under remote invigilation, exams can be taken online and supervised remotely by a live invigilator.
ACCA said that there would be a “thorough” system of checks involving biometrics, artificial intelligence and recording, adding that “rigour, security and integrity are paramount”.
Alan Hatfield, ACCA’s executive director, strategy and development, said: “We recognise the disruption and frustration the pandemic and resulting exam cancellations have caused for our students and their desire to progress, and this development will ensure their opportunity to do so.
“We’re targeting June to enable this for our on-demand exams (Applied Knowledge and Foundation level exams) and September for our session-based Applied Skills exams. We’re still exploring the situation for our Strategic Professional exams and we’ll provide updates soon.”
He added: “ACCA aims to offer remote invigilation to students as widely as possible in circumstances and locations where our centre-based exams will need to be cancelled for health and safety reasons, or are affected by disruption.
“We’re consulting with our learning partners on its introduction and how best to support our students, and we’ll continue to learn from their experience – and that of our students – on how remote invigilation might be further developed in the future.”
Exam entry is open for September, and ACCA is now advising students to book exams in their local centre “as usual”.
The association will provide more details as it moves nearer to enabling remote invigilation, and has produced a “comprehensive” set of online Q&As which students can refer to for more information.
