The March sittings were hit again with IT crashes, but this time the problem seems to have got much worse!
The first few days of the ACCA exams, in the UK and elsewhere, have been hit with a multitude of technical issues as computer systems crashed and students were left waiting hours to sit their exams.
Sitters in Birmingham seem to have been hardest hit. As one SBL sitter said: “It was a nightmare. Many of us travelled to Birmingham from London and Kent, only to end up waiting for six to seven hours. The majority had to give up and withdraw before it got sorted, while ACCA UK made a marketing stunt out of the whole thing.”
One leading tutor said about the SBL problems: “This is terrible, waiting for hours and then taking a four-hour exam. Doesn’t bode well for the full roll-out in June.”
Another tutor was angry when they heard one of their students started the exam six hours late. They weren’t given any food or water from when they entered to when they left – that’s 11 hours!
We got reports of problems at London centres too although the delays do not seem to have been so prolonged.
This follows extensive ‘Monday morning problems’ in Leeds, Plymouth and Portslade.
There were also big issues on the first day of exams in Ireland, the Caribbean and Malaysia, too.
We were told exams on Monday in Dublin and Leeds were cancelled outright.
Later in the week, students also complained about scrolling problems. “I couldn’t scroll past the page I was on no matter how hard I tried,” said one PM sitter.
Another student agreed, saying: “I spent a ludicrous amount of time scrolling left to right and up and down. Then to compound this I wasn’t able to progress from one question to another without trying for 10 times to do it.”
And there were problems vieing the scenario and answer at the same time.
ACCA got in contact with us with an official statement (see below).
Go to pqmagazine.com for our feedback for the actual exams, and you can read the exam hall fiasco story as it unfolded there too.
