Scholarships and Fee Concessions for CA Students

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We’ve covered a lot of ground in terms of what ICAI has to offer to you in terms of courses. But apart from courses, the institute offers its students a number of scholarships and fee concessions. Today, we’ll be looking at these fee concessions for differently-abled students and scholarships for CA students in detail.

Scholarships

The Board of Education offers students the following scholarships for CA students:

1. Merit based: Merit based scholarships are given out to the top ten students, i.e. students that rank from 1 to 10 in the CA Intermediate exams which is held every year in May and November. These students are eligible for the scholarship at Rs 2000 per month. As students of the Final year, they will receive a scholarship for 30 months or for the remainder of their Articleship, whichever is lesser. The top 10 rank-holders are exempt from paying the fee for attending the residential programme on professional skills development.
2. Merit-cum-Need based: This scholarship is for those students who are on the merit list of rank holders (other than the top 10) of the Intermediate exam and whose parents’ annual income does not exceed Rs 1,50,000 per annum. Students in the Final year who are eligible and accepted will receive their scholarship at Rs 1500 per month for 30 months or for the remainder of their Articleship, whichever is lesser.
3. Need based and weaker sections: This scholarship is meant for students who are in the Intermediate and Final CA course whose parents’ income is no more than Rs 1,00,000 per annum. Students who have applied and been selected for this will receive their scholarship at Rs 1250 per month for 18 months for Intermediate students, and for 30 months or the remaining period of their Articleship for Final year students. Under this category, a total of 550 scholarships (250 for the Intermediate course and 300 for the Final course) are awarded by the board out of which 2 scholarships are reserved for physically challenged students. For students who belong to SC/ST/OBC categories, an additional Rs 100 per month is awarded on submission of certificate of proof attested by a member of the institute. Apart from 550 scholarships, there is also a provision for scholarships for spouses and the children of deceased members of the ICAI pursuing their Intermediate or Final course at the Institute.
4. Scholarships under endowment schemes: The criteria for this category are the same as need based scholarships. In this case, scholarships for CA students are given under different Endowment Schemes created by individual donors or a large group of donors. 
5. Senior Secondary Board Scholarship: The board of education also awards scholarships to meritorious students who have secured the first two ranks in any recognized secondary board (from any stream) and have joined the CA Course within one year of passing.  For such students, the course fees for the Foundation course will be refunded to the students in six equal installments once they have submitted the required documents for verification of their claim.

Note: The Institute can cancel or revoke a scholarship if a student does not clear the Intermediate or Final exams in the first two attempts. Also, students have to submit an Income Certificate for parents' total income attested by a member of the Institute. 

The table below summarizes this information in a nutshell:

Fee Concessions

The board also has a number of fee concessions for those with disabilities. Let’s take a look at the entire structure in detail.

For students who are facing complete and permanent disability of or more than 50% are eligible for the following benefits and disability exemptions:

Exemption of payment of registration fee for the following courses:

1. Intermediate course
2. Final course
3. Articleship registration
4. ICITSS (IT & OC)
5. Advanced ICITSS (Advanced IT & MCS)

In order to get this exemption, the students must submit their health certificates from the hospital with an attestation from any one of the following authorities:

1. DCOs Heads/Regional Heads/Officer-in-charge of the Branch
2. Principal under whom the student is registered for Articleship
3. Central Council Member/Regional Council Member/Managing Committee Member

Make sure you submit the correct certificates/documents because there is heavy and careful scrutiny of every application form. If the board thinks a student is ineligible for the fee exemption, that student will be required to pay the fee in full within one month of being informed.

In the above mentioned subjects, the disability exemptions work as follows:

1. For the ICITSS (IT) course, students are required to study themselves from the study material provided to them and clear two IT test papers.
2. For the ICITSS (OC), students can either attend all classes or appear in two test papers of 3 hours each after a study period of 15 days from the date of registration.
3. In the case of Advanced ICITSS (Advanced IT), students are required study on their own from the study material to clear the exam.
4. In the case of Advanced ICITSS (MCS), students can either attend all classes or appear in two test papers of 3 hours each after a study period of 15 days from the date of registration.

In order to understand the fee structure for these CA students, let’s first understand disabilities and what covers ‘differently-abled’. Broadly speaking, we can divide disabilities into Physical, Intellectual and Mental.

Physical Disability

A. Locomotor Disability 

This is the restriction of movement because of damage to bones joints or muscles or a condition that affects the nervous system. As a result, a person is unable to perform basic day-to-day activities. These include:

1. Cerebral Palsy: Cerebral Palsy is conditions whose symptoms appear in early childhood and affect muscles hearing, thinking, sensation, speaking among other things.
2. Dwarfism: This is genetic condition where a full-grown adult doesn’t exceed the height of 4 feet, 10 inches.
3. Muscular Dystrophy: This is a group of diseases that result in progressive decrease in muscle mass. As a result of this, a number of other conditions arise such as trouble breathing and swallowing.
4. Acid Attack: This is the disfiguration due to acid-related accidents or because of similar corrosive substances.

 B. Visual Impairment

1. Blindness: This could be partial or complete absence of sight.
2. Limitation in the field of vision

C. Hearing impairment 

This means either a person is completely deaf or hard of hearing.

D. Intellectual Disability 

Intellectual disabilities include those that limit intellectual functioning to a significant degree and cause difficulties in learning, problem solving and reasoning. These can be classified primarily as:

1. Specific Learning Disabilities: Many people display a lack of processing languages, either written or spoken, or both. Some common examples of these are dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia and developmental aphasia.
2. Autism Spectrum Disorder: These are neuro-developmental conditions, signs of which appear early in a person’s life and affects social aspects such as the ability to communicate or understand relationships.

E. Mental Disabilities 

Mental disorders or disabilities are those affect mood, perception, memory and impairs judgement as well as intelligence in a person. This limits a person’s capacity to understand reality and function normally in everyday scenarios.

F. Other Disabilities

1. Neurological conditions such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease.
2. Blood disorders such as haemophilia, thalassemia, sickle cell disease.

G. Multiple Disabilities

These include more than one of the above mentioned conditions including deaf-blindness.

In a nutshell, students with one or multiple disabilities specified in this blog will be eligible for a fee concession. In order to understand more about the fee structure for these CA students with these conditions, get in touch with the ICAI. We’re sure they will be more than helpful in assisting you with your needs. Also, you should be applying for scholarships/fee exemptions on the ICAI website.

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