I already posted this message under a different title and realised that the messages will not be looked if the title is not catchy! So, I have changed the title and re-posting the same message!
Well, I was an articled assistant some three decades back and things were a lot different then. I have been seeing the way in which the articles system has been in vogue and feel that ICAI has done precious little to revamp the system of education, esp on the practical training side of it. CA is indeed a very important profession but there is no uniformity whatsoever in affording the practical training of the students. For instance, training (if at all) is given differently in a large firm or in a metro firm as compared to a small/medium firm in an upcountry place. No structure is precribed by the Institute and absolutely there is no mechanism to check whether good training is given. ICAI is simply turning a blind eye to the glaring disparities in terms of timings, opportunities, treatments, areas etc. In fact there is no training given to CAs how to give training to articled assistants, with the result, most CAs repeat the treatment what they received as articled assistants. I am told that Big Firms behave no better when it comes to treating students as nastily as the small / medium firms. In fact, students who are euphoric when getting selected by Big 4 - as they would get a laptop, nice ambience, feeling of importance, big ticket clients, 'getting dropped and picked up' (no matter how late they will have to work at the cost of their studies), and above all handsome stipends sooner or later realise that they become glorified slaves. And if anyone dares to show a little amount of resistence or determination to question, they are harassed to the hilt. I keep hearing that a particular girl student in a Big 4 firm in Chennai is being harassed to unimaginable extents just because she showed some temerity in refusing to 'apologise' for a mistake she did not commit. All these things will happen more as long as ICAI keeps silent in the issue of re-vamping the system of education of CA course. There must be institute-sponsored coaching classes, drawing the best of faculties, to give class room sessions on all subjects for all the students compulsorily for two years as some kind of a regular college (with a lot of impetus on case studies and simulated real-life problems and issues on accounting, taxation, costing, management, infotech etc.) and put them to one year of training with only those CA firms which qualify for some exacting parameters and prove that they have enough facilities and opportunities to give training. Such practical training should be carefully monitored by ICAI by some kind of mechanism (even the present peer review system can be extended accordingly). ICAI which runs predominantly on students money should, at least when it has crossed 60 years of existence, think of doing something good to the student community. They should not take advantage of the situation that the CA student community is fragmented and hence would never be able to unite to question them. Talking to them nicely and sweetly in conferences and writing messages in students journals with no conviction are all simply hoodwinking them. Students from their side should also realsie their potential and simply not get swayed away by their principals' money making ambitions, see through ICAI's determined proclivity of not doing anything good to the students community, not idolise the coaching class teachers - most of whom are definitely more concerned their earning rather than students' learning etc. Students should not subject themselves willingly to the harassments meted out to them. They should stand up boldly and learn to question injustices. If students are not good, they will not be able to correct the bad world. They are in the process of becoming professionals of impeccable quality and they shoud begin to deserve such status.
CAclubindia
