December 2024
The ICAEW Advanced Level exams have been rocked by controversy. Students sitting the Corporate Reporting paper had a question about a music festival held in October and a band called ‘Nova’.
The Nova Music Festival in Israel was a major target for Hamas terrorists in the 7 October 2023 attacks. As one ICAEW member said: “Who on earth thought this was acceptable in light of the 7 October 2023 atrocities.”
Many other members voiced their shock and disgust on X, with several suggesting it was “certainly no accident or oversight”. One qualified accountant felt it was too much of a coincidence, and another said it was clearly done with intent.
One student who sat the exams explained: “I sat this exam on Monday and couldn’t quite believe it when I read it.
Many other Jewish candidates spoke to me afterwards and were equally shocked.” It has also been suggested that students who sat the exam were afraid that if they spoke up they would be penalised. ICAEW was quick to respond, and confirm the mistake. It said on X:
“We are aware of an issue regarding some sensitive wording used in one of the Corporate Reporting exam questions on Monday 4 November.
“One question described as context a music festival held in October 2024 in a fictitious country, and then subsequently referred to a music band called ‘Nova’. We can confirm that the scenario for the question was drafted in 2021, before the tragic events in Israel in October 2023.
However, the association of the words and the names used was not identified through our exam question review process before Monday’s exam.
We fully appreciate how and why the proximity of these words in the question was insensitive and we are deeply sorry for any offence caused to students sitting he exam.
“We have immediately changed our exam question review process to help ensure that this does not happen again. All ICAEW exam questions are only used once, and we can confirm that this question will not be used again or published with its original wording.
“Our Exam Disruption Appeal process is available for students who feel they were adversely affected by the wording during Monday’s Corporate Reporting exam, and we sincerely apologise to any students or members who were offended by this.”
PQ magazine also spoke directly to ICAEW’s director of education and qualification, Shaun Robertson.
He was obviously very upset about what had happened, and said in the short-term he just wanted to ensure all students were looked after.
He explained the institute would be relaxing the deadlines for appeals and would be completely changing its exam processes going forward.
But he acknowledged the error and was sincerely apologetic. He told us this was not done on purpose and was a genuine mistake.
