Review and my experience of ICAI's Virtual MCS Course.

 

Institute of Chartered accountants of India (ICAI) has launched Virtual MCS Course for those CA Final students who has appeared in May 19 and Nov 19 exam. And this course can also be done by those students who are going to appear in Nov 20 and May 21 exam. 

Due to Covid-19 pandemic, 90 hours physical MCS Course is not possible. So, ICAI made arrangements of doing such MCS Course virtually. For New course students, they compulsory need to do this course before appearing in CA Final exam and in case of old course students, they also compulsory need to do this course but before applying for CA membership.

First you need to go to: https://virtualmcs.icai.org

At this website, you need to Register yourself. 

Once you got log in details, make payment for the course. Students can pay ₹5000/- fee online and can start watching lectures on their PC or smartphone. 

Before start watching, you need to upload your passport size photo. Also scan and upload your PAN.  In your case, if you are earlier required to do GMCS-1 then it will also ask you to upload scaned jpg file of GMCS-1 certificate.

There are total 90 units. Completion of each unit will be considered as completion of 1 hour. Each unit has 3 part.  

Part 1: Video lecture

Part 2: Case study based on part 1 

Part 3: Test of 10 marks.

Webcam is also necessary. It will capture your photos randomly during lecture and test.

Part 1: Video lecture 

This is actually PPT presentation slides which is given in video form with female voice-over. 

Here, they don't teach you anything they just read whatever written on the slides.

During video lectures, pop up questions come up and you need to answers them. Each video lecture has about three pop up questions. When you answer that pop up question then only you can watch remaining video. At the end of video lecture it shows % marks earned in pop up test.

You need to watch that video lecture to go to next part 2. 

You can not randomly select any lecture and watch it. You can watch lectures only serially as they have provided.

On average, each video lecture is of 30-35 minutes.

Part 2 : Case study Video 

This is a 2 minutes video. This case study video also has 3 pop up windows which deals with issues in case study and their solutions. You just need to read whatever written on that 3 pop up windows. 

Part 3: Test

At the start of test, you need to capture image of yourself. Then only test start. 

Duration of the test is 20 minutes. But I solved it in less than 3 minutes. As 80% questions of the test are of True or False type. 

Minimum 50% marks in each test is must.

On average, I have scored 100% or 90% marks in each test.

They capture images randomly through webcam during 10 marks test.

After Test results, you can Review your answers by clicking "Review" tab.

By clicking on "View Full Report" tab you can view your randomly captured images. You cannot delete that images. That images are captured when you are giving 10 marks test.

Before  issuing certificate, they will verify this images.

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Each day you can watch maximum of 6 hours lectures. Means you can complete maximum 6 units each day. After you watched 6 hours, it will be locked automatically. Then you can watch next video next day only. Here, 24 hours are considered as each day. At midnight 12:01 new day starts, so, you can watch next video from midnight. But remember that, your face should be seen in webcam.

This course is need to be done in 15 days. But in my case, I do that in 16 days as first 3 days I can't watch 6 hours a day. On website, they shows that duration of the course is 180 days.

Before completely watching all the videos, you should upload your passport size photo as that photo will be on your Virtual MCS Course Certificate.

After watching all the 90 videos i.e. completing 90 units. Pop up window tells you that, Certificate will be issued in next 15 days. In my case, after 2 days they send SMS and email to me and tell that my Certificate is ready and I can download it from "My Profile" section. They ask me to download certificate within next 15 days. This certificate has my photo on it. 

This certificate doesn't mention % marks of the test. It mentions "Certificate of Participation".

Good things about the course:

Quality of contents of the course is very good. Personally, I feel it very useful. In GMCS-1, which I have attended physically at ICAI branch, most of time is wasted in unnecessary timepass. I didn't find anything useful from that but this V-MCS is useful for me. It gives me much more knowledge which is needed for fresher.

Bad things about the course:

Some of the video lecture has Low volume. In some lectures, the reader has pronuncing word wronly, in some part they are reading it too fast.

In Leadership skills chapter, their have 2 units named as "performance management I & II". But the test of 2nd unit is asked in 1st unit and 1st unit test is asked in 2nd unit. Means you need to give 1st unit test answers using common sense as you can't watch next video unless you have passed previous unit test. 

Without passed previous part test you can't open next part video. Then you have to solve "Performance management I" test on logics.

In some 10 marks Test, I find that even if I have given right answer they show it as wrong.

Here, I want to tell you that, don't take too much tention of test as I said earlier the test are easy, you just need to use your logics and if you have watched lectures carefully then you can solve test very easily.