PQ magazine March 2016
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RECORD INTAKE
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EXCLUSIVE
The ICAEW just can’t stop growing! New figures show that the number of students signing up to an ACA training agreement rose by over 10% in 2015. The ICAEW student intake last year was a record high, with 8,256 new students studying its chartered accountancy qualification. Add students studying the ICAEW CFAB qualification and the institute signed up almost 14,000 students in 2015. That means that the ICAEW now has over 24,000 to nurture. At the recent Tutors’ Conference, Director of Qualifications Shaun Robertson stressed that the institute had a responsibility to these new students to ensure they have the best chance of qualifying. And he added that the institute has to ensure these training chartered accountants achieve the standard of the current 146,000 members. The ICAEW also announced that the planned introduction of CBE exams will now take place in March 2017, a year later than originally hoped. With partners BTL and RM in place, the ICAEW has the CBE ‘ready to go’. It now needs to re-tender for a partner to provide the actual exam delivery – the computer exam centres. It had
ACCA signs up British Council
Robertson: ICAEW has a responsibility to nurture its students
chosen learndirect, only for Pearson Vue to come in with an offer to take them over, putting implementation on hold. Tax Compliance will be the first to go CBE and there was even talk at the conference of a possible pilot this September. The ICAEW is also continuing to evolve the syllabus, to ensure students qualify ‘fit for purpose’. In January, it introduced scenariobased questions to the Management Information and Principle of Taxation exams. With students specialising at an earlier stage in their career the
ICAEW has decided to offer alternative modules. From June, Business Planning students can choose between taxation and the newly introduced banking and insurance alternative modules. Roberston was keen to stress, however, that they were not trying to create specialists and PQs will still have to sit and pass 15 exams. From March 2017, students will be able to choose between UK GAAP and IFRS when sitting the Financial Accounting and Reporting exam. The same choice will be offered in Corporate Reporting at the Advanced Level (in 2018).
The ACCA has unveiled the new partner to provide its global exam centre network for the introduction of the ACCA’s CBE and paper-based exams – the British Council. The agreement means the British Council will provide a secure network in the UK and in over 100 countries where the Council operates. This new initiative builds on the long-standing relationship between ACCA and the British Council, which is currently the association’s main exam centre provider for paperbased exams, providing over half of the venues in the ACCA’s international network. ACCA CEO Helen Brand said: “This new agreement sees the British Council provide ACCA’s future exam centre network in the UK and overseas, exclusively for ACCA students. It supports the roll-out of ACCA’s new computer-based exams for ACCA’s Fundamentals Skills Level (F5-F9) exams from September 2016 onwards.” She said CBEs were an exciting development for ACCA, incorporating spreadsheets and word processing to better reflect the tasks PQs have to do well in the workplace.