We have detailed guidance here to help you complete your journey to Gold status.
Each question you answered in the self-assessment has its own section on this page, whether within Student expectations and policy (1.1 to 1.5) or Student experience and continuous improvement (2.1 to 2.7).
The guidance includes:
The sample documents can be found at the end of each section.
All students are issued with your institutions terms and conditions of enrolment. Students are asked to actively confirm that they have been provided with the terms and conditions on enrolment.
We will assess the evidence provided for this target to ensure that students signing up for tuition at your institution are given all appropriate information on their courses prior to enrolling and committing to paying for tuition.
By reviewing your institution's terms and conditions, we ensure that there is transparency around the terms and conditions and there are no hidden policies that students should be aware of. We should be assured that your institution manages the expectations of ACCA students at all times.
Terms and conditions should areas such as:
If you do not have terms on the above topics, you should create these. However, for example, if you do not issue refunds to students, we are not advising that you must, but you must state in your terms and conditions that you do not issue refunds.
We would expect a disclaimer line within the terms and conditions to confirm that all students has read and understood all terms.
Also, if the terms and conditions are located on a different document, this should be referenced on the enrolment form.
A formal, transparent complaints procedure is in place and available to students. Complaints are investigated thoroughly and promptly, within specified time frames.
We will assess the evidence provided to ensure that students are aware of how to make an informal or formal complaint about your institution's product or service. Any student that wishes to make a complaint to ACCA regarding your institution will be advised to follow your institution's complaints procedure first.
The contents and conditions around the complaints policy should be at your institution's discretion, and we do appreciate that the policies will be unique to your institution and the type of tuition offered.
Complaints policies normally include:
Clear guidance is provided to students on how to get in touch and engage with your institution relating to ACCA matters.
Students should be given advice on how and when they should contact your institution. This is important to ensure that students know where, when and how to pose questions.
Students should be directed to the Student section of the ACCA website which provides information on relevant topics, for example:
It's important that students are not provided with out-of-date information, so your institution should not publish information that could go out of date quickly - for example, information on exemptions.
It's more beneficial to direct students to ACCA's website which will always have the most current information; we would expect support staff to know relevant sections of the ACCA website and tools such as the exemption calculator to give the best service to students.
Students also need to know how and when they should get in touch with us directly - your institution should ensure that contact details for ACCA Connect are provided to students.
Evidence of where students are provided with information on:
Promotional material contains accurate information regarding ACCA. In addition, promotional materials should make no unsubstantiated or potentially misleading claims.
We will assess the evidence provided to ensure that the information on your website and promotional material is accurate, up to date and contains no unsubstantiated claims, which are potentially misleading for students and leads to student dissatisfaction.
In general, we expect any promotional activity from an institution that is seeking to be approved by us to be legal, decent, honest and truthful. In addition, your institution will be expected to comply with our Advertising Regulations which will be provided upon approval.
You must not use ACCA's Corporate Logo and Think Ahead logo.
Students are provided with guidance on their programme of study, including a detailed breakdown of their course into modules or study sessions.
We will assess the evidence provided for all ACCA papers taught by your institution to ensure that students are aware of the topics that will be covered each week and relevant references to study materials. This will allow them to undertake further reading by your institution prior to their lectures taking place.
It should also highlight when mock examinations are due to be conducted to allow students to include this in their revision plan.
In addition, references to our Practical Experience Requirements (PER) should be included. We expect your institution to link the syllabus to the practical elements of our performance objectives as part of PER requirements. This will help students apply their knowledge to what is expected of them in the workplace.
Regular review of course structure and delivery, student performance, retention and feedback is conducted and documented.
We will assess the evidence provided to ensure that your institution reviews the topics specified above.
We would expect that your institution will investigate issues and trends with a view to creating an action plan for improving your tuition provision. Also, we expect to see evidence that a review like this has taken place by submitting minutes of the meeting, for example, where the results of the review are discussed along with a record of any planned actions.
Study environment must be appropriate for mode of delivery, course type and be conducive to study.
We expect that there are mitigations in place if your normal teaching arrangements become no longer viable.
We will assess the evidence provided, to ensure your institution has secured premises for ACCA students. An initial approval site visit during the application process is conducted to ensure that the area is fit for purpose and the study environment is appropriate for mode of delivery, course type and be conducive to study. The initial approval visit will include a tour, a discussion with your tutor and a meeting with your students.
For those institutions that offer distance learning/e-learning/blended learning tuition, we expect to review a current lease in respect of the administration base and demonstration of the online learning platform provided to students.
The demo should include:
A copy of lease agreement/proof of ownership or any other evidence confirming arrangements in place to secure the teaching premises.
A lease should include:
If your lease has an option of renewal, we would require the lease along with confirmation from the owner of the start and end date of the renewal period.
A lease should include:
If your lease has an option of renewal, we would require the lease along with confirmation from the owner of the start and end date of the renewal period.
Learning provider is financially viable.
We will assess the evidence provided to ensure that your institution is in a healthy financial position to operate while ACCA students are attending your tuition. If a student has committed to attending your institution's courses, then we must be assured that your institution will be in a position to honour this agreement.
Tutors are knowledgeable and experienced in their chosen field and hold qualifications appropriate to the subjects they teach. Tutor performance is monitored and development opportunities provided.
We will assess the evidence provided to ensure that your institution's tutors are appropriately qualified and experienced and ACCA students have the best possible teaching experience at your institution.
We would not expect to find that part-qualified tutors are teaching papers beyond their own qualification level. Monitoring of tutors would typically include analysis of pass rates of all students within the class.
Course completion figures are documented and reviewed for each paper taught, and the reasons for losses are investigated.
We will assess the evidence, for all of our papers taught your institution provided, to ensure that your institution compares how many students start tuition for each ACCA paper, in comparison to how many complete tuition for each ACCA paper.
For example, if your institution offers tuition for paper AB, how many students started the course? How many completed? If there were any losses, the reason why and any resultant actions taken by your institution.
Course completion can be misinterpreted as measuring how many students return for a second course of study or progress through the ACCA Professional or Foundations in Accountancy qualifications. This performance target is about closely monitoring if students withdraw or drop out of their tuition with your institution, and not about how quickly they progress through their ACCA studies.
We expect to see evidence of an investigation into the reasons for students not completing their study at your institution and any resulting actions, and this is used as a basis to improve your policies and procedures. The key aspect of this target is to understand the reasons for any students leaving your institution.
Mock examinations are set, reviewed and returned with constructive criticism within a specified turnaround time.
A mock examination is taken as a trial exam before an official ACCA examination. The purpose of a mock examinations is:
We will assess the evidence provided to ensure that students have completed a mock examination prior to their final ACCA examination and are therefore better equipped to pass. This is to ensure that students’ mock examination attempts have been adequately marked and returned to your students, for all of our exams taught by your institution. This will allow them to tailor their studies to fill any gaps in their knowledge and/or examination technique.
We expect to see:
Please note that our past examination papers should not be amended in any way when being used in a classroom environment.
Samples of marked mock examinations scripts for all of our papers taught by your institution:
Student feedback on performance is actively sought, reviewed and acted upon where appropriate.
Student feedback questionnaires should include questions on study environment, tutor performance, and course content and delivery.
We will assess the evidence provided to ensure that your institution collates, summarises and analyses student feedback. We must be assured that your institution is proactively identifying issues and trends with the tuition provision and identifying resulting actions.
It is good practice to schedule feedback at specific times throughout a course - perhaps midway through and again at the end of the course, to gauge the impact of any improvements.