ICAI CA November Exam 2020: Nearly 31 thousand students use â??Opt Outâ?? scheme, to appear in next exam cycle

ICAI CA November Exam 2020: As per the latest update, nearly 31,500 CA aspirants have decided to go for the ‘Opt Out’ option and decided not to appear for the  ICAI CA November Exam 2020. As per the official estimate, around 4.7 lakh CA aspirants are due to appear for the CA November Exam 2020 for final, intermediate and foundation courses. ICAI CA November 2020 exams are scheduled to start from tomorrow i.e. 21^st November 2020. Owing to the unique circumstances presented by the pandemic, the institute had allowed students who are COVID positive or have family members who are infected by coronavirus, to choose the ‘opt out’ option in order to skip the November exam cycle and instead carry forward their attempt to January / May session.

11 Thousand to Appear in May Cycle

As part of the opt out option provided by the ICAI, a total of 11,687 candidates have opted for the session in May session and decided not to participate in the Jan-Feb Exam cycle. The rest of the students have decided to appear for January – February 2021 attempt for CA Exams, for which the dates were announced yesterday by the institute. On 19^th November, the Institute announced dates for ICAI CA Jan / Feb Exam 2021, keeping in mind the demands by a section of CA aspirants who were demanding that the exam dates for the next cycle be announced before they can choose to opt out of the current cycle.

Concerns about Exam Being Held in Offline Mode

Apart from this, the ICAI CA November 2020 exam has also been centre of protests by students, who have been demanding that the offline format of exam be changed to online. With the number of COVID cases rising across the country, the fear of a stronger 2^nd wave of COVID is on the rise among CA aspirants and their parents. In line with this, several students have started online protest against holding of November 2020 attempt of CA exams in offline or in-person mode. Students have been protesting against holding of the 18-day physical exam, which pay put a lot of students at risk. Moreover, concerns have also been raised over flouting of social distancing norms, as many exam centres have been divided into blocks and will have more than 400 students

In response to the protests and to address the apprehensions raised by the students, ICAI President Atul Gupta has issued a statement saying that CA aspirants will be allowed to use the opt out option to skip the November attempt until the last date of the exam.