The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has launched ‘cloud campus’ — the next generation interactive online learning programmes — to enable students from anywhere across the world to pursue CA, its president K. Raghu said here on Friday.

The ICAI ‘cloud campus’ provides e-learning facility where at the touch of a button the student can log into audio and video course content, online mentoring and articles training resources.

“We are keen on leveraging technology to provide more access to students. The ICAI is the first professional institution to provide online resources,” said Mr. Raghu at the start of the national convention for CA students organised by Board of Studies, ICAI and hosted by the Guntur branch of Southern Indian Chartered Accountants Students Association (CICASA).

Stating that the CA curriculum is in for a big change to make it ready for global needs, he said that the Board of Studies has been working on bringing in new changes in tune with emerging developments in industry.

Outlining some of the student-friendly measures the ICAI has launched recently, Mr. Raghu said that 93 reading halls across the country were established. Students now have access to various online services including downloading marks sheet, access to previous year question papers and access to answer scripts.

Admitting that the CA studied in distance education mode continues to be one of the toughest exam to crack, the ICAI president disclosed that ICAI had introduced step-wise marking so that student could get marks for the number of steps, even though he had got the solution wrong.

The pass percentage of CA-IPCC exam continues to be low at just 3.11 per cent as students have not been using course material provided by the ICAI and instead have been depending on tuition notes. He also advised the students to give equal importance to case studies and complete the articleship training under an experienced auditor.

Vice-president ICAI, Manoj Fadnis said that CA course has been a dynamic course and urged the students to have a goal and pursue CA.

Chairman of BoS and convention chairman M. Devaraja Reddy, central council member J. Venkateswarlu and chairman of SICASA, Guntur A. Leela Krishna Murthy were present.