We are all concerned as to where our CA education is heading to. I started this mail to initiate a discussion to look into this very important aspect as it will determine the future CA's.
About two decades ago getting admission in an engineering college to study the discipline you desire required you to get a good rank. If you got a rank but not one that was good enough you had to compromise on the dream discipline which you desired. Today you don’t even need to write an exam to get study engineering, thanks to the spate of private engineering colleges that sprouted out like mushrooms. The dream of every aspiring student to get an engineering degree is now easily realized but then is they engineers?
What do we have today is graduate engineers in large numbers but majority of them lacking in quality proving the old adage that More and more quantity will result in less and less quality.
You might be wondering why I had broached this topic about engineering course. It is because the great Chartered Accountancy course appears to be going the same way…. The path of “DISTASTER”.
Perceivable Perceptional difference
We as members of the Institute and our leaders at the helm of affairs and who are instrumental in the policy making process, are in a wonderland of sorts with the misconception about direction the profession is heading to. Perhaps misconception is a better word to choose rather than say they are ignorant or indifferent.
Our perception
Our own perception of this wonderful course of Chartered Accountancy can be summed up as under
1. CA is the toughest exam in India
2. The Chartered Accountant product that we produce is by far the most complete in all aspects and no other profession can
assure the same amount of finishing along with the degree certificate.
3. Most respected course
4. No student who passes the final exam will be without a job.
Industry perception
There has been a lot of discussion about the CA course especially the quality of Chartered Accountants of today. To start off I would just list a few of these much publicized comments from different quarters about the fresh crop of Chartered Accountants
· ICAI seems to be manufacturing CAs and not making them we don’t need them now.
· The quality of the average CA is much below the market expectation
· Lack conceptual knowledge
· Lack application skills
· Lack communication abilities
The practitioner’s nightmare
- The new crop is not interested in practice and majority of those opting for practice are mostly the ones who could not find a place in the industry. Hence they lack the passion of being a professional
- Since majority want to join service they seldom show any interest to learn the nuances of practice and hence do not add value.
- Not that the present generation lack in anything, they are far more intelligent, smart well informed as a normal student but majority of them as students of CA course they seem to be lacking in these skills. May be our curriculum and training regime is the cause.
Where did we go wrong?
A. TAMPERING WITH THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM
What is gone wrong and where? I don’t think ICAI has put in serious thought into this. This is perhaps because we have unnecessarily messed up our healthy education system.
In an informal chat, some time back, I was informed by one council member that the entire change of the education of a CA was done
with the following important objectives.
- To make the entry level easy so that more students can be brought into the fold.
- To catch them young - qualify young - be on par in age with the B school graduate
- To ensure that more and more CA’s are produced since the demand is huge.
- And one single most important reason is that the Government feels that there are not enough CA’s to take up the great opportunities. (These exclusive opportunities for CA’s will be given away to other professionals).
Achievements of this new policy.
- We have great influx of students into the course but we also have to realize that the great influx to the course is not because of ICAI’s popularity but the marketing skills of coaching institutions
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To catch them young and early
I hear many CA’s complaining that having such article trainees who are just out of school doesn’t really add much value. It’s different that the younger crop is far smarter, intelligent but still maturity is something different. - What is the demand even the industry only absorbed 10 % of the candidates at the campus interviews and several young CA’s are still looking for a decent job.
- With more than 80% of the students passing (with the generosity of ICAI) opting for employment what will happen to the so called professional opportunities for which we were passing so many?
- Where are the expected professional opportunities? I hope the policy makers have an answer.
- Further when we are not able to ensure adequate opportunities to the existing members god only knows how we will cater to the increasing numbers.
B. ALLOWING COACHING INSTITUTIONS OF MASS PRODUCTION OF CA’S TO TAKE OVER THE EDUCATION OF CA.
THE EDUCATION AND TRAINING OF THE CA APPEARS TO BE IN THE HANDS OF THE PRIVATE COACHING INSTITUTIONS AND THE INSTITUTE FOR WHAT EVER REASON HAS BEEN SLOWLY RELEASING ITS AUTHORITY AND CLASP ON THE EDUCATION TO THESE INSTITUTIONS.
We have today several coaching institutions that are manufacturing Chartered Accountants their coaching methods have been producing great results on two counts.
- Their rigorous training (rut learning to be precise) schedule helped by our weak examining system
- Our weak examining system.
Their training is predominantly exam oriented and not knowledge oriented. Hence a student is able to pass the CA exam without having good understanding of the subjects. The result is that though they are able to ensure that the student passes the exam but in view of the shortcomings discussed above he is unable to get a good placement.
The latest ad's of these institutions going around is the 100% money back if you do not pass in 6 years. Walk in after your 10th and walk out as a CA in 6 years.
I admire their confidence and their publicity budget which goes into crores as celebrities are endorsing these advts (its a different issue that these celebrities are in no way connected with the course)
Don’t blame these institutions they are just wily businessmen making money out of our foolishness and perhaps give them credit for popularizing this course even if it was for a different reason.
C. OUR TESTING SYSTEM - EXAMINATION
Our examination system is like a quality testing lab and I hear so many CA’s say that our testing appears to be highly compromised and we are passing out products that are not up to the mark. These mass manufacturers seem to know our testing methods better than us.
When I said that our testing system is compromised, I can for sure say our question papers have become predictable and the questions do not have enough spice, I mean have no practical content. We don’t seem to test the knowledge (conceptual and application) of the student instead we seem to be testing the memory. The papers have become so predictable that coaching institutions are able to predict 60% of the questions. How are they able to do that? a million dollar question i guess.
One of our members replying to this mail of mine even mentioned to me the language blunders that were glaring in the question papers of the May 2013 exam. Who is setting these papers?
D. ARTICLE TRAINING
The training period of articles is of paramount importance to any person pursuing this course but very little care is being taken by the institute with this regard. The training period is not being monitored at any level by ICAI. The importance of articles is not being emphasized as much as it is required.
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Why it is not monitored?
The main reason for the fear to touch members on this issue and identify those who are at default is that they are voters and no one would dare mess up with them. But someone should bell this cat for ensuring a good future of the institute. - There is a need that the training given to articles be monitored and peer review should also look into the aspect of training.
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Almost al SMP’s complain that
These students when seeking articles start with asking for leave in the final year as they have to join these coaching institutions full time courses.
Even during their article majority are more concerned about the coaching classes than learning any work.
Many students have no real interest in the work they do as they feel that they will be taking up employment what they learn here will not be of much use to them. There is no qualitative output for the employer. Since majority of them will not be coming to the profession the employer too will not have any interest in sharing his skill and knowledge required for the profession.
- We also hear from the students several complaints regarding their principals that they are not giving them the requisite training and use them as cheap labor and make them work for longer hours. But definitely these voices are but a few majority of the students are happy with their principals.
DUMMY ARTICLES
The less I talk about dummy articles the better. We should not blame the coaching institutions (that during counseling they tell the student they can get them dummy articles) as the fault lies with our members who are providing this facility. Why not the institute device a method should where in there is some check on the members to ensure that they are not giving dummy articles.
Revise criteria for employing article trainees
- Why should not the criteria for eligible number of articled trainees be based on the turnover/number of files rather than years in practice?
- Just imagine in today’s world what need would a CA who does not come in the bracket of service tax need 10 articled trainees. What is the kind of training he will be able to give them?
- Of course on the flip side there is this problem if we take the turnover criteria may be only the MNC and big accounting firms will take in the majority of the articled trainees but at least it is ensured that they will be getting some training.
- Some of our members own kin are sent to full time courses during their articleship period instead of making them learn the work. They feel they can learn the work after they qualify. The fault lies within us.
WHAT CAN WE DO NOW ?
Let us ponder
It was due long back but still we have time to salvage the sinking ship. It is late but not over for us to reconsider the education we are giving our students, the training routine that we put them through, the way we test their knowledge and skill and finally the way we confer them with the qualification.
Be Present think future
The time has come for us to reconsider our education format to keep in tune with the times.
Is this primarily a course to make “Professionals”?
Many members strongly feel that ours is a professional course which has been formed by an Act of Parliament with a duty cast upon us primarily to attest various financial statements in order to ensure their compliance with various statutes and serving industry as employees is perhaps secondary.
The irony is that majority of the young CA’s join this course for opportunities in industry. Well we also need to cater to the Industry because it will provide entities to have experts in house. But the problem is that majority of them neither become members of the Institute nor renew their membership after the first year. So will they be adding any value to the institute? Some of them even commented that the professional code of conduct and ethics are only applicable to members so they prefer keeping out of it.
Don’t you think this is something we have to think about?
Resurrection
After discussing with many members I put forth the following strategy to restore the credibility of this institution, ensure sanctity of this great examination and ensure that we cater to the industry and profession with equal zeal. FOCUS ON QUALITY AND NOT QUANTITY
Few measures
- Make the entry level tough like the IIT and CAT so that non-serious candidates will be dissuaded from getting into this course. Earlier since the numbers were small the entry was easy but today with the great influx we need to control the entry.
- The question papers should be packed with more practical questions rather than the regular predictable ones the papers are having today. The questions should be framed in such a way that for IPCC level it should test the concepts and fundamentals and for final the practical aspect. It should be made difficult for a student to pass if he has not done his articles.
- Moderation should be based on some criteria not just across the board addition of marks.
If it is possible
- The first one is provide good coaching facilities at all branches and ensure that students have to compulsorily attend classes of the institute.
- We can engage the best faculty in the country for the virtual classes for the benefit of the students.
- Allot some percentage marks for the internal assessments that are conducted during these classes. Ensure quality and coaching at reasonable price for the student.)
But some members responding to my mail opine that the above three proposals on coaching classes may not be practicable but I guess it can always be tried.
Some members want the system of CPT scrapped and Graduation be made compulsory for joining CA. One member even commented “Just because the numbers of actuaries is very small the association never diluted their examination to increase numbers”
Additional optional measures
Separate qualifications for Practice and for Service
Why not think of having two sects of qualifications with different training regime one catering to the industry and the other to the profession.
- We may have to alter some of the subjects in the final to give specialized training in finance, stock markets, treasury, general management and the like for the people opting for industry.
- The period of training can be reduced to two years if necessary.
- For students opting for practice the present regime with some improvements should be enough with stress on subjects relating to practice
- Provide special training for the students who want to practice. Also sessions on professional ethics along with GMCS.
- Also assign a qualification like Certified Finance manager, or Chartered Finance manager and reserve the qualification Chartered Accountant only for the practitioner.
- Rules can be framed for any person who passed out opting industry stream to come into practice stream.
Another important aspect is the Articles we need a big chapter to discuss this so we will leave it for another occasion.
People say that we have to think future, is it possible for BOS and BOE who are yet to reach the present?
One of the Indian business magazines reviewing the professional courses said that CA was the toughest course in India because of the robust examination system and the hard work the students have to put in.
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