In a visionary leap aimed at revolutionizing professional education, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka) unveiled its groundbreaking new curriculum which will produce highly versatile chartered accountants for 2020 and beyond who will help steer businesses across all sectors with their unique competence and multifaceted skills.
The curriculum 2015 was ceremoniously launched under the theme ‘the change that creates champions’ on 25th March 2014 at the Cinnamon Grand Colombo, in the presence of business leaders including Chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce Suresh Shah, chief guest at the event, academics and students.
The new curriculum which comes into effect from next year is designed to ensure that the future chartered accountant goes beyond its traditional financial role and becomes a true partner in business who will create value, enable value, preserve value and report value to the organization they serve.
The new CA Sri Lanka curriculum which meets international standards including global qualification requirements laid down by the International Federation of Accountants in its International Education Standards, was developed following an extensive consultation process comprising CA Sri Lanka members, and non-members including chief executive officers, heads of accounting and finance, human resource managers, academics and students.
Speaking at the landmark event, President of CA Sri Lanka Arjuna Herath emphasized that the world has become exceedingly complex and is fast changing. “In such an environment, we need to continuously transform ourselves to be useful players in the progress and development of our people and the organizations we serve. This was the rationale for the new syllabus. It demonstrates our commitment to making the Chartered Accounting qualification relevant to current and future needs of business and an enhancement to the learning experience of students,” he said.
He added that the new syllabus is geared to meet the needs of both employers and employees atall levels of competencies. “The highest level being a ‘2020-ready’ Chartered Accountant who will partner the businesses of tomorrow through financial leadership. Our aim is also to make this qualification the most sought after qualification for a business leader,” Herath added.
The curriculum 2015 is structured around three pillars; Knowledge, Skills and Personal and is offered at three levels; Executive, Business and Corporate.
Accordingly, students who complete the executive level will be recognized as ‘Certified Business Accountant,’ while students who complete the business level will be known as a ‘Certified Senior Business Accountant.’ Students who complete the third and final level which is the corporate level will be recognized as a ‘Chartered Accountant’.
The executive level provides the fundamentals of accounting and harnesses the skills and professional values needed to mould a Business Accountant, while the business level builds technical abilities whilst enhancing interpersonal and communication skills and problem resolution skills as required of a Senior Business Accountant, and the third and most important level, which is the corporate level aims to produce a chartered accountant fully equipped with the required knowledge, skills and personality to be a corporate leader. Students who follow the programme will also be taught and tested on the importance of an ethical grounding across all three levels.
Chairman of the CA Sri Lanka Education and Curriculum Development Task Force, Manil Jayesinghe emphasized that the institute revises its curriculum every five years and or as regularly as required in line with local and international expectations to ensure highly proficient chartered accountants are produced who can give able leadership across all sectors. He also noted that the new curriculum has been developed to be far more flexible than in the past
“Apart from focusing at producing fully fledged chartered accountants for 2020 and beyond, the new curriculum has also been structured in a way that even students who decide not to go to the next level will have adequate competence to perform at a particular level without completing the entire programme,” he added.
Jayesinghe added that the ultimate aim is to produce a chartered accountant who will be able to part¬ner businesses in achieving its goals through financial leadership.
Chief Executive Officer of CA Sri Lanka, Aruna Alwis said that as a leading tertiary education provider in the country, CA Sri Lanka has always been at the forefront in offering a relevant and globally recognized curriculum. “In keeping with our continuing efforts to ensure our professionals are on par with changing times, we revise our curriculum regularly,” he said.
Alwis added that the CA Sri Lanka qualification was one of the most sought after professional qualifications in the country. “At present we have over 44,000 students who are studying to be chartered accountants,” he said, while adding that in 2013 alone, over 12,000 students registered for the institute’s benchmark qualification in chartered accountancy.
