Yes I'll tell you what I think: this change is absolutely absurd. The Institute has left me in an extremely precarious position.
On one hand the Institute has printed on their website in black and white:
"For students studying under the current curriculum, please note that there will be no change to you in terms of additional exam hours. Every exam that you are currently required to sit transfers to the new curriculum, and it will not take you any longer to qualify than under the current curriculum.”
In the introduction to the Curriculum 2019 document published in October 2016:
"The recommended number of study hours will not change, and the number of examination hours will not increase either. The curriculum has also been developed so that the length of time it should take you to qualify will not increase."
The Curriculum 2019 document goes on to mention:
"General Principles.
In preparing these transfer arrangements a number of general principles have been taken into consideration.
These include the following:
• All subjects in the current curriculum transfer onto a subject in the new curriculum.
• The IFoA aims to achieve a situation where there will be no increase in the number of examination hours.
• All passes and exemptions that you already have will be transferred over to the new curriculum. "
They have also made several references to state that their intention is not increase:
A) number of exams
B) exam hours
C) study time
D) time to qualify
On top of this, in 2013 the Institute has published exam dates and names of the exams until 2020 under a section of website designed to give students advice on how to plan their route through the exams. While there is a disclaimer to say the dates of exams might change it doesn't warn that exams students have previously taken might be rendered completely worthless.
You won't find this document anymore though, as since I've made a complaint the Institute has started shredding documents, but you might recall looking at this document to plan your exams as I have done.
If you read the Curriculum 2019 document, which I encourage you all to do, you will find in the pages of the poorly written and confusing document a number of contradictions to the numerous statements quoted above with regards to the transfer arrangements.
Most notably:
- You have to pass CT1 and CT5 to get an exemption from CM1
- You also have to pass CT4 and CT6 to get an exemption from CS2
- CT8 is changing from one exam to two, which you only realise after some careful thought
Incidentally, I don't know why CM1 has the abbreviation CM as is entitled Actuarial Mathematics. And similarly, CS is Actuarial Statistics. Maybe the M and the S stand for mathematics and statistics? Also, I am not sure why Core Practices needs a full stop on page 2 of the Curriculum 2019 document. I think these exams are driving me nuts.
Due to personal circumstances, I've taken quite some time to get to where I am but I only have CT4, CT5 and CT8 left.
Therefore in my particular case, if I don't pass my remaining CT exams in the next three sittings, instead of having to take 3 x 3 hour exams, I will have to take double the number of exams, endure a 50% increase in exam hours to 13.5 hours, suffer from having to lose countless weekends, early mornings, lunchtimes, late evenings, sleepless nights, Easter and Christmas holidays due to increased study hours. My time to qualify is tending towards infinity.
I complained to the Institute about this late last year. I was basically told that it was my problem and the Curriculum 2019 would be introduced as planned (or not planned as per the Exams which will not take place till 2020 document).
I am not sure if it was because of my bitter complaint, but I believe that the Institute sent out personal notification emails advising students who had either CT1, CT4, CT5 or CT6 to complete these exams in the next four sittings. However the email was sent out in January 2017 and I think this was a little late since most people would have already started to study then. No mention was made of CT8 even though the transition arrangements imply that number of exams, exam hours, study time and ultimately time to qualify will also increase if you have to take 2 exams for CT8 rather than the current 1.
This is far too little notice as I don’t think I can pass all of these exams in this time. In addition, upon further consultation with the Institute, they advised that the last time they changed things round, they gave students 4 sittings notice and there were many students who were negatively impacted.
From the exam results page published on the internet, if you count the number of student failures of CT1, CT4, CT5, CT6 and CT8 last sitting. There were well over 2000 instances. Making the crude assumption that students take 2 CTs per sitting (which I don’t personally have time for anymore) this means that perhaps over 1000 students will be impacted in some shape or form. I am pretty sure that having planned to take 1 CT per sitting as I was under the impression that the exams would be available as per the published Institute document until 2020, there is a high chance that I will not end up completing my remaining exams and have to endure more years of suffering.
In summary, I find it very unprofessional to suddenly impose a time limit on examinations which will cause many of us undue stress and inconvenience.
The Curriculum 2019 is being introduced prematurely with little consideration for student welfare. The Institute is admitting they have made a gross error by removing published content regarding exam planning on it’s website and covertly changing other small pieces of information which ultimately have a big impact on students.
The communication surrounding the new proposal is rather miscommunication as it is full of contradictions and causes confusion. As a result errata emails were issued by the Institute, but these have failed to address CT8 and were also issued too late.
The Institute is serving students a great dishonour by imposing demands which rob us of the recognition we should receive for passing these awful exams.
What do other people think? I know that there must be a lot of people who are impacted? But even those that are not, please share what you think of the Curriculum 2019 document.
Robin Hood
Last edited by a moderator: May 12, 2017