ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) is introducing new flexibility for ACCA students around the world to enable them to take their exams at home or in another location in circumstances where centre-based exam sittings are disrupted.

This development will ensure the robust and secure way of using the latest technology to enable remote invigilation of ACCA Qualification exams, to give its students reassurance that they can continue their exam journey in the face of Covid-19 disruption. 

Alan Hatfield, ACCA’s executive director, strategy and development says: ‘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.’

Under remote invigilation, exams are taken online and supervised remotely by a live invigilator. There is a thorough system of checks involving biometrics, artificial intelligence and recording – rigour, security and integrity are paramount.

Alan Hatfield continues: ‘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. Exam entry is open for September and we know students are already planning for this session. We advise students to book exams in their local centre as usual and we’ll provide updates if circumstances change.

‘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.’

ACCA will be using the latest in invigilation technology, providing assurance to regulators that ACCA’s exams have the same security and integrity around the world, whether that’s in an exam centre, at home or in a workplace.  

ACCA will provide more details as it moves nearer to enabling remote invigilation and it has produced a comprehensive set of online Q&As which students should refer to for more information (add url). 

Alan Hatfield concludes: ‘In these uncertain times we believe this innovative development will help students progress on their ACCA journey to becoming professionally qualified accountants.’

Alan Hatfield’s full statement about the development is available online here.