Periodically, ACCA conduct a review of their examinations process and syllabus content. The purpose of these reviews is to ensure the qualification continues to be relevant to the needs of students, employers and learning providers. The last major development of the ACCA Qualification was in December 2007. The qualification was brought up to date and restructured to meet employer, student and learning provider needs at the time and to comply with the International Education Standards of IFAC (International Federation of Accountants) and other regulatory requirements. As originally publicised in the June 2010 edition of Student Accountant, the ACCA Qualification will undergo further development and updating with effect from June 2011. The good news is that this is largely an update process rather than any major structural changes and it ensures that the qualification continues to evolve and adapt to the latest business and accounting sector needs.
Highlighting the changes – an overview:
Structure: There will be no major structural changes to the ACCA Qualification assessment or in respect of rules relating to registration, progression or exemption. There will be no significant changes to the structure of the exams in the Skills module of at the Professional level (F4 to P7 inclusive). A new exam timetable will apply from December 2011. Further details of this will be published by ACCA later on this year. Knowledge module papers (F1, F2 and F3), which will be structured differently in the future. There are no changes to these papers for the June 2011 exam sitting. From December 2011, amended syllabi will be introduced for Papers F1, F2 and F3. I n t h e f u t u r e , a different exam style will also be introduced with a greater variety of longer and short-form questions in the assessment rather than the current mix of short objective questions of one and