AAT grants student membership extensions during coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak

AAT has granted membership renewals to students who are close to completing their AAT qualifications and may therefore have not budgeted for an additional year of student membership.

A three-month extension has been granted to students:

• studying our short qualifications
• studying an AAT Accounting Qualification who have either one or two assessments remaining and are due to renew between 1 April and 1 June 2020
• who have purchased a separate End Point Assessment (EPA) that is due to expire by 30 September 2020. These students have been given an extension to 31 December 2020.

AAT is in the process of contacting all affected students in these groups.

Mark Farrar, AAT Chief Executive, said: “Managing the renewals of our members in a fair and considered way during this challenging time is essential. As a non-profit organisation, our sole purpose is to serve our global community, and we must protect our ability to support our 130,000 members who rely on us for guidance, resources and insight. However, we must also support those students who are shortly due to complete their qualification.

“For now, all other students, affiliates, professional and licensed members who are due to renew are being asked to do so as usual. This will protect our organisation’s future and ensure we can continue to support them after this crisis subsides. However, we are monitoring the situation daily and will contact subsequent groups of members in due course should the situation change and we feel it appropriate to offer additional extensions.”

Assessment and events update

While all AAT assessments have been suspended worldwide since 22 March, almost all are available on demand and should therefore be available shortly after restrictions lift. We don’t currently offer remote invigilation, but AAT is talking with the qualifications regulator, as well as evaluating our own system capabilities, to identify possible options.

In addition, we're monitoring the situation regarding awards of "average" grades in line with government and regulator guidance. It may not be appropriate to use an "estimation" approach to outcomes of AAT qualifications.

As soon as we know when current restrictions on educational institutions are to be lifted, AAT will be reviewing our synoptic assessment window, and additional windows are a possible solution.

Finally, we are putting together a new enhanced webinar programme for professional members, including plans to transfer our AAT Future Finance 2020 two-day event – delivering the same practical insights, big ideas and industry trend updates – in a brand new digital format. Further details of our updated event schedule will be issued in due course.

All latest updates from AAT relating to the Covid-19 outbreak can be found on our dedicated updates page.