This blog owes its existence to the discussion I had with my colleague, couple of days back. Out of nowhere, one fine morn, a question popped up – What are the 5 things that I would do, if I had the power, to improve the lot/quality of chartered accountants (CAs) passing out? Posed this Q to my colleague and below is the common list we arrived at, after much haggling …..
1) Get the recruiter’s input as to what skills they expect from CAs. After having got their inputs, incorporate changes in syllabus - to instill the skills and examinations – to test those skills.
2) Change the structure of the CA Final exam. Make it compulsory that every guy/gal taking the exam identify two subjects and specialize in them. He/she must master those two subjects and take “specialization” exams in them. It’s only logical that the examinee will choose those subjects which will enable him to achieve his career goal. For e.g. for someone interested in a career in audit, taking specialization exams in audit/law will be logical, while others can take the “easier” exam in audit/law. Another benefit of this would be that, it will make the life of the recruiters uncomplicated as they can narrow down on the candidates with the required skill sets easily.
3) Have the prescribed textbooks written by world renowned/respected authors. It makes much more sense if they are authored by specialists and experts in their respective fields. Dunno if it is being done right now….but strongly suspect otherwise going by the pathetic quality. By “renowned/respected”, I am not talking abt Drury for costing or Datar for MAFA…U do have home grown specialists who I am sure would be more than glad to have their names associated with the institute.
4) Conduct tough entry level tests. Skills to be tested – Maths & Logic. The test to be conducted in English, Hindi and all major regional languages to enable rural students to have a fair shot. Only top 1 percentile of students are to be admitted into the course and not more than 2 attempts allowed. Students must be tested in business communication in PE2 level to ensure good knowledge of English. Honestly, I am sick of seeing dumb CAs, who lack the basic quant and logical skills and believe me they do the max to bring down the profession in the eyes of the recruiters. The institute has to ensure that the CAs are of a minimum intellectual caliber, if it ever wants to dream abt taking on the MBAs from the IIMs. And, in case you have not figured out bu now, the CA course at no point of time tests your logical/quantitative skills.
5) Have open book- case study based tests for law/audit/tax(direct and indirect). Do you want CAs who understand the concept or CAs with good memory?
That’s it for now…ciao :-)
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