The world’s largest accounting body is to stop students being allowed to take exams remotely to crack down on a rise in cheating on tests that underpin professional qualifications. The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), which has almost 260,000 members, has said that from March it will stop allowing students to take online exams in all but exceptional circumstances. In 2022, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), the UK’s accounting and auditing industry regulator, said that cheating in professional exams was a “live” issue at Britain’s biggest companies. A number of multimillion-dollar fines have been issued to large auditing and accounting companies around the world over cheating scandals in tests. She added that the rapid rise of technology, led by AI tools, had pushed the issue of cheating to a “tipping point”.

Source: The Guardian December 30, 2025 08:45 UTC