President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka) Arjuna Herath has declared that the recently unveiled curriculum of CA Sri Lanka will change the future landscape for chartered accountants securing them a very bright and exciting future.
Addressing the ceremonial launch of the curriculum 2015, Herath also disclosed that the new curriculum which aims to be the most sought after qualification for a business leader, has been benchmarked against the syllabi of the world’s leading professional accountancy organisations.
“The new syllabus is a visionary leap aimed at revolutionizing the professional accountancy education in this country. Along with this new curriculum, we will transform the teaching methods to be used by partnering teaching colleges to be outcome based learning, and ensure the knowledge the student acquires is transformed to effective application and skills, together with an emphasis on acquiring life skills that are so critical for a professional to make an impact,” he said.
CA Sri Lanka, which is one of the country’s largest tertiary education providers with over 44,000 students, will partner with teaching colleges to transform the colleges to be modern learning centers and the institute will use technology to provide supplementary learning opportunities in the form of webinars, and eLearning tools & material.
“I am confident, the new syllabus will be exciting and very promising for the students, as well as for the employers wanting Chartered Accountants of par excellence,” Herath said.
The new curriculum will produce chartered accountants for 2020 who will partner businesses through financial leadership. The syllabus will produce highly skilled and competent chartered accountants who are multi-faceted professionals having the ability to create value, enable value, preserve value and report value.
“The world has changed so much and has become exceedingly complex and is continuing to change rapidly. We will keep pace and continuously transform ourselves to be current and relevant and be an important catalyst in the progress and development of our people and the organisations we serve. This new syllabus will meet the future needs and demands of business and will enhance the learning experience of students,” Herath noted.
The new curriculum meets with all the required international educational standards for professional accountants issued by the International Federation of Accountants and is also certified as meeting with all the international norms by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales.
“This syllabus is world class and will help us to continue to produce internationally reputed Chartered Accountants,” he emphasized.
Herath maintained that it is a chartered accountant that will give leadership to the private sector, and with many Chairmen, Directors and CEOs in a large number of companies being Chartered Accountants, the private sector will continue to be led by the accounting profession.
“It is no different in the regulatory environment and in the public sector with the Governor of the Central Bank, the Director General of Sri Lanka Accounting and Auditing Standards Monitoring Board, the Auditor General, and Secretaries to Ministries are all our members. This is a clear testimony to the role and the contribution of Chartered Accountants in the growth and development of this country and evolution of society,” he said.
Herath asserted that CA Sri Lanka was obliged to ensure that the aspirations of over 10,000 new students joining the institute every year and the 44,000 active students the institute have are fulfilled.
“Based on the knowledge and skills that they will acquire, students could qualify at the lowest level as a Certified Business Accountant, or at next level, which we call the business level, as a Certified Senior Business Accountant, or at the ultimate level, which we call the corporate level, as a Chartered Accountant. Students qualifying at each of these levels will be competent and skillful to fulfill the relevant roles in a finance function or in practice,” he noted.
In order to facilitate effective learning, the institute also boasts of state of the art infrastructure for the benefit for its students and members in the form of a very modern IT Lab, a world class communication lab, well equipped lecture rooms, a very modern auditorium and a resourceful library.
“I believe chartered accountants are a very rare breed. There is no other profession that develops skills in a student to an extent that he or she immediately on qualifying is very competent and skillful to play their professional role independently. With this new syllabus we will further change the landscape for the Chartered Accountant and for all our stakeholders for a very bright and an exciting future,” Herath added.
