3.3 lakh students appeared for the July edition of exams

Nearly 3.3 lakh students appeared for the July edition of the CA examsbraving the threat of Covid-19 and fears around its impact while putting their career on priority, a top Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) official confirmed.

“Roughly about 40,000 students out of registered 3.7 lakh students had opted-out on the ground of Covid-19. About 3.3 lakh students have appeared for the exams,” Nihar Jambusaria, President, ICAI told BusinessLine.

Both the final and intermediate examinations for July edition are now over and the foundation course exams are expected to be completed this week (July 24-31), he said.

Jambusaria said that he had informed the central council that ICAI was “well prepared (in terms of adopting Covid protocols) to conduct the exams” even as some activists had approached the Supreme Court. He pointed out that SC had allowed the CA Institute to go ahead with the exams as planned while passing directions on providing the opt-out facility for students.

It may be recalled that the CA Institute had to recast its earlier announced opt-out option for Chartered Accountant aspirants taking the July examinations so as to bring it in tune with the directions of the Supreme Court.

Post the recast, an examinee was entitled to exercise the option of opting out if he/she personally, or any of his/her family member (residing at the same premises), has suffered Covid-19 in the recent past – on or after April 15, 2021.

Moreover, in line with the SC directives, the ICAI had said that it will go by the certificate of the registered medical practitioner for this purpose, and there won’t be any need to produce the RT-PCR test result along with the request for opting out.

Earlier, the ICAI had stipulated that the provision of opt-out would be available only if the examinee were to furnish Covid positive RT-PCR report, along with the Aadhaar card of the infected person (examinee or the relative as the case maybe).

Lockdown

ICAI had also allowed examinees affected due to lockdown during the period of examination to opt out and had announced that July 2021 examinations will not be treated as an attempt for such students. Such examinees were permitted to appear in the subsequent next examination to be held in November 2021 for old as well as new syllabus. This had come in handy for students as several States were under lockdown and had even extended it during the period of examination.

Examination centres

The ICAI had, in line with SC directive, allowed examinees to opt out if there were any last-minute changes in examination centre in any city or the examination centre were to be located in a containment zone. The opt out facility was available even when the CA exam could not be held at any of the examination centre/city due to restrictions imposed by the central government/ State government/ local authority.

The foundation course exams were postponed by a month (from June 24 to July 24 onwards) in the wake of Covid-19 situation.

Source: https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/covid-19-blues-nearly-40000-students-opted-out-of-july-edition-exams-icai-chief/article35523436.ece