The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), one of the prominent accounting bodies which has always been pro-active in designing education and training programmes has introduced several students’ friendly measures. Some of the introduced changes are:
Copies of answer sheet
The CA students will now be provided the certified copies of their answer books in soft copies. They can view their answer sheets by visiting a particular website at their own convenience. The institute will provide a secure log in ID to the students and the password will be intimated to them.
Correction window
The students after submission of their exam forms, will now be given another opportunity to correct their particulars like changing examination centre, group and medium opted etc by visiting http://icaiexam.icai.org. This link called “correction window” will enable the students to communicate online with the examination department for making corrections in the examination forms.
Writer or scribe service
The ICAI will provide the services of a writer or scribe to the differently abled CA students, initially in some select cities. A city wise panel of writers is under way. The honorarium to such writers will be paid by the institute. The examination committee of the institute would soon be providing computer facility to the differently abled students for writing their answers with suitable safeguards so as to avoid any possibility of its misuse.
Applicable notified sections
Another examination related decision which the ICAI has taken is that they has made applicable the notified sections of Chapter IX— ‘Accounts of Companies’ and Chapter X— ‘Audit and Auditors’ of the Companies Act, 2013, along with the related Rules in addition to 45 sections of the Companies At, 2013 for the November 2014 final examinations.
For the May 2015 examinations, the relevant sections of the Companies Act, 2013 notified till September 30, 2014 would be applicable. Pursuant to enactment of the Companies Act, 2013, the syllabi of certain papers have been revised comprehensively. The related announcements have also been hosted on the institute’s website.
Study material
For the overall development of the students, ICAI has decided that in future the study material be divided in different modules. The availability of study material in module form will provide the flexibility to carry and study the same at ease. To begin with the study material at intermediate level is being brought out in different module in July, 2014.
For the benefit of the students, the practical problem solving video lectures for practical subjects like accounting, financial management, costing, taxation etc will also be recorded and uploaded on ICAI website. These lectures will go a long way in helping the students scattered in different parts of the country as far as deep understanding of intricate subjects involving computation are concerned. As of now 185 hours of e-lectures for CPT course, 244 hours for Intermediate Integrated Professional Competence (IPC) course and 346 hours for the final course have been hosted on the institute’s website.
Mock Tests
With a view to encourage students to evaluate their preparations for the examinations, 98 Branches including 5 regional councils organised mock tests for IPC and final level students in the past two months. The question papers and their solutions are also being hosted at the institute’s website for the benefit of those who could not appear so as to enable them to avail of this facility sitting at homes.
ICAI TV Channel
The ICAI has been using all possible ICT modes including delivery of audio video lectures extensively through Gyan Darshan etc. To use the upcoming DTH platform of MHRD, ICAI will launch ICAI TV channel for the benefit of more than 8.29 lakh students. Through the channel, the education content would be beamed to students across the country through eminent faculty.
Cloud Campus
With a view to bring all knowledge resources such as e-learning lectures, power point presentations, podcasts, etc available on the ICAI website, it is intended to harness technology further and build up a cloud campus so that the education is easily accessible as well as becomes interactive to the extent possible.
With all these revamp, ICAI aims to produce competent professional Chartered Accountants and meet the demands of the modern dynamic society.