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Why do so many ca students fail?

Narayanan (exec) (242 Points)

13 December 2014

Why is the failure rate so high ?

The course is defnitely hard but why do people get paid less inspite of clearing a so called hard course ?

Is even the market demand considered in designing the curicullum ?

Is ICAI doing anything about it or are they busy with internal politics ?

Why is everyone so clueless about the fate of the course ?

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17 Replies

CA ANKUSH AGGARWAL (CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT) (2782 Points)
Replied 13 December 2014

Failure ratio is high due to 1) lack of planning by students and 2) tough checking and exams by ICAI.

Actually this low passing percentage makes CA course very unique and challenging and hence prestigious.Bcom passing percantage is very high due to which it has no market value.

Salary basically depends on one's personality,academic records and experience.Many CA students opt for dummy articleships and hence Nil experience which results in salry of 15.000-20,000.Same CA student opting for BIG 4 articleship or any other reputed firm gets around 35,000 plus.

Yes market demand is considered while designing syllabus.Thats y,ca syllabus is revised after 5 years I think.However,I am not to satisfied with ISCA course content.

Internal politics prevail in every indian office goin individual and it is not going to change due to tough competition.

Well no one is clueless about the fate of the course.everyone has his/her opinion about Exams,Checking,syllabus,articleship and they express their ideas on forums like caclubindia.But every one knows as a student You cant change the structure of working of Institute.Thats why i think we require more young ca in Icai governing committees.

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Narayanan (exec) (242 Points)
Replied 13 December 2014

I agree on the dummy articleship scenario. Students think they can take up dummy articleship and finish the course and then can get experience by working. However , they end up neither working nor clearing the exams.

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Narayanan (exec) (242 Points)
Replied 13 December 2014

No takers ?

I guess everyone is too tired discussing this issue.

Nirukt Sharma (Student) (133 Points)
Replied 13 December 2014

ICAI's passing rate is comparable to its counterparts across the world, be it CPA (US), ACCA (UK), Australia or Canada, even other finance cources like CFA, IRS, CS, etc. All being dauntingly low. The number of candidates clearing the exams is dictated by demand and supply. They tweak the difficulty of the exams accordingly. An important point to know is that the people at the helm of offairs of the institute are constantly lobbying the government for more grants, powers and autonomy. All for the betterment of their fraternity, after all it's the foremost purpose of ICAI's existence. Moreover the existing CA's wouldn't want to dilute the value of their profession by needlessly creating more CA's. (Majority of freshers don't even get a job offer after qualifying, thus unnecessarily hiking competition). Thus, I reckon CA, like all other distance professional courses are a zero sum game. Somebody wins and somebody loses.People shouldn't take failures personally but attribute it to dwindling demand of relevant man power. Instead of mindlessly trying to achieve that 50% mark, it would do people good if they directed some of their efforts into crafting a personality and skill set that is in vogue in the industry.

2 Like

CA ANKUSH AGGARWAL (CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT) (2782 Points)
Replied 13 December 2014

Agreed with nirukt sharma

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Jithin (Learner) (1057 Points)
Replied 14 December 2014

Originally posted by : Nirukt Sharma
	ICAI's passing rate is comparable to its counterparts across the world, be it CPA (US), ACCA (UK), Australia or Canada, even other finance cources like CFA, IRS, CS, etc. All being dauntingly low.

Hi Nirkut, for your kind info, the pass rates for courses such as CPA US, CFA US,ACCA,etc. are nowhere comparable with ICAI pass rate. Pass rates for all these courses hovers around 40-60% and for some, even beyond that! Pls check the below links for more info.

1)Pass % of ACCA https://www.accaglobal.com/in/en/student/acca-qual-student-journey/qual-resource/acca-qualification/pass-rates.H T M L

2)Pass % of ICAEW https://www.theaccountant-online.com/news/icaew-announces-73-success-rate-in-exams

3)Pass % of Canada Chartered Accountants(CICA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Evaluation

4)CFA US Pass rate https://www.cfainstitute.org/programs/cfaprogram/exams/Pages/cfa_exam_results.aspx

5)CPA US Pass Rate https://www.aicpa.org/BECOMEACPA/CPAEXAM/PSYCHOMETRICSANDSCORING/PASSINGRATES/Pages/default.aspx

6)CIMA Pass Rate https://www.cimaglobal.com/About-us/Press-office/Press-releases/2014/CIMA-publishes-May-2014-exam-results/

5 Like

CA ANKUSH AGGARWAL (CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT) (2782 Points)
Replied 14 December 2014

hanks for enlightening us Jithin

Narayanan (exec) (242 Points)
Replied 14 December 2014

Thanks for the valuable information Jithin.

So this low pass percentage is peculiar to the ICAI.

Looks like the fault is mainly on ICAI.

There is something terribly wrong with the process.

akhil jain (article) (72 Points)
Replied 14 December 2014

Low salary is because, we are not expert in anything... However we have knowledge of everything, but, Due to this vast course, we end up with working knowledge, but do not get expertise in one or two fields of our interest, Suppose if you want to make your career in Direct Taxes, but you have to study Costing and ISCA as well, which will have no use at all after passing exam.

Narayanan (exec) (242 Points)
Replied 14 December 2014

Expertise can be had only after years of hard work. We can have theoretical expertise at best from studying for exams. These subjects have been included as a potential fundamental addition to the candidate. It is actually safer to study varied related subject to get a whole picture of the financial working and also open up opportunities on all these fields. The key term here is opportunities. ICAI is trying to make more opportunities by digging wider and deeper instead of just deeper. That is one of the major reasons for the difficulty of the course.

If a person wants to focus on DT then he can study DT to score 60 plus and manage to get 40 in costing and ISCA. However achieving that is hard which is a konown fact.

The main question I wanted to ask is "Is the course unnecessarily hard ? Is it really worth it ?"