It was a nerve-wracking 8 hours for the thousands who sat to write the competence exam in the hopes of becoming chartered accountants. After many issues arose, an investigation has been launched to look into the matter.
The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) has apologized to its candidates for exam issues that surfaced during the Assessment of Professional Competence (APC) examination on Wednesday 1 December.
“I’m stressed just knowing and imagining the trauma that most of the candidates that were writing this assessment are feeling and once again I wish to extend my apologies for the experience they went through as well as assure them that irrespective of the conditions, the assessment still tries to be as balanced and as fair as possible given the challenges that they had as they were writing,” said Freeman Nomvalo SAICA CEO.
Nomvalo pointed out that it is expected that some challenges like these will always arise when you have these big events but they shouldn’t get to this proportion.
It is reported that some of the issues that the candidates were complaining about included a number of ‘not up to scratch’ laptops that were hired for this specific exam by SAICA for the exam. Some faced internet connectivity issues that in turn compromised the APC eWriting software.
These technical challenges had a negative impact on approximately 5,000 candidates who sat for the assessment.
“As a SAICA member I’m embarrassed at the incompetence I believe went on at exam centres yesterday. I hope you have a winning solution for the students who you subjected to this debacle,” says Clifford Livingstone.
The accountancy body will not be nullifying the entire exam because it wouldn’t be fair to those who may have passed.
Nomvalo added that they want to be fair to those that would have made it.
SAICA has launched an immediate investigation into the difficulties experienced.
The CEO says a decision on a possible rewrite exam will only be made once the original exam has been marked and the results have been considered.
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