Exclusive by Louise Durack
ACCA has revealed 351 trainees will be forced to resit their December exams after their scripts were stolen during a robbery on a DHL courier van in Glasgow recently.
The scripts, stolen on 4 January, included the work of 200 trainees who sat Paper 2.6 in the UK and Republic of Ireland and 151 students who sat Paper T10 in Malaysia.
ACCA has told the stunned students they will have to attend the specially set up resits on 19 February and that there will be no flexibility granted on this date.
Mark Protherough, ACCA managing director of education, training and development, said: ‘Of course we very much regret that these students will have to resit this exam. We have tried our utmost to minimise the disruption to their studies and to alleviate their distress.’
An ACCA spokesman added the organisation ‘fully understood and shared the distress of the affected students’.
However, trainees bombarded the Pass/BPP Talkback line after being told by the organisation that they must resit their exams.
One student told Pass of his distress to find a letter on his doorstep on 21 January informing him of the shocking robbery and the subsequent resit.
‘I think ACCA need to be a bit more flexible in the way they deal with this. Offering us a few financial sweeteners will not be good enough’.
Another angry trainee from Glasgow told Pass the whole situation ‘very stressful’.
They added: ‘ACCA has told me this date is non-negotiable, but the problem is I will be arriving in New Zealand just two days prior to this for a holiday and I will obviously not be in any fit state to take an audit exam at that point.’
ACCA added that in addition to the new sitting, which it said will prevent students being unduly disadvantaged; ACCA is offering the following help:
* Meetings with senior ACCA staff
* Revision notes sent to the students
* Fees credited for all exams sat in the December 2004 sittings
* No charge made for the affected students' next four subject attempts, provided these are taken during 2005
* The students will not be subject to subscription charges for the next three years
No comments:
Post a Comment