ICAI PROTEST: Dear ICAI Please Change

September 24, 2019November 30, 2020 Anima tietler

ICAI PROTEST

For the second consecutive day, Candidates who have appeared for the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India examination protested against the ICAI at the headquarters near ITO on Monday. These candidates are alleging error in the evaluation of the paper. Also, these people are demanding to re-examine the paper.

#dearICAIpleasechange is trending on Twitter. CA students say that there has been a mistake in Paper Evaluation from ICAI.

These are more than 100 students who all are carrying banners in their hands and asking for a re-evaluation of the paper.

The reason behind the agitation

The demand for reform — being raised for the last 1-2 years — It gained momentum last month after the ICAI released ‘Suggested Answers‘ to the exam. Doing a comparison with their answer sheets, obtained under the Right to Information Act, many discrepancies in evaluation came to light. And, so students started agitation.

You can see the anger of students in this video:

At the same time, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India issued a notice on the website on 21 September. It is written in this notice that we came to know that some adverse reports related to the system of evaluation of the answer sheets of the CA exam are being shared on social media. Improvements are being made in this regard. Improvements include digital evaluation, central evaluation, machine-based evaluation, stepwise marking, and mandatory online testing.

The demand by CA students for transparency and accountability in exam evaluation is just and should be heeded by the ICAI. In an exam-based system of education, it is absolutely imperative to establish the integrity of the examination process.

What the protesters want

Protesting students have wanted an amendment to the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949. The regulation allows verification of “whether the candidate’s answers in any particular paper or papers have been examined and marked, and not for the re-examination of the answers.”

That means students can only ask ICAI to re-total their marks — leaving no scope for re-examining/revaluating of apparently wrongly marked papers.

They demand:

Provide the option of Re-Correction of the answer sheet
Penalize the exam evaluators if mistakes are found in their work
Give Question Booklet of MCQs and Disclose correct Answers
Centralized Evaluation
Allow students to mark the circles on OMR sheets in exams with pens

Reform Finally:

1. Digital evaluation: All papers of Intermediate and Foundation level exams in November 2019/May 2020 will be put through the digital evaluation mode to avoid physical handling of answer books, avoiding variations in marks awarded by examiners, eliminating scope of any totaling errors.

2. Central evaluation: Central Evaluation is being carried out in several papers of CA exams, w.e.f November 2018 wherein examiners evaluate answer books under the supervision of Head Examiner/Associate Head Examiners.

3. Machine-based evaluation: Effective May 2019 exams, objective type questions for 30 marks have been introduced in select papers of Intermediate and Final Exams. Further, the Institute has decided to introduce OMR based evaluation for MCQs of Elective Papers.

4. Stepwise marking: Provision regarding stepwise marking is being enforced whereby in case the stepwise marks are not awarded.

About ICAI:

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India is the oldest professional body in India. It was established in 1949, a statutory body under the Act of Parliament. The Statute of Chartered Accountants of India offers a CA course. Institute of Chartered Accountants of India is the second-largest accounting body in the world after the American Institute of Public Accountants.

The Institute functions under the administrative control of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.