icap education policy improvement suggestions

[noman]

icap's policy needs drastic improvement for a long time...
but icap has been very slow in this regard..
however i will give some suggestions myself..and invite others to give suggestions also (please keep in mind that suggestions should be practical)

1.Develop education material which is uptodate,relevant,well defined and certified...currently only PBP and Folks Lynch are producing some material.......and we all know that quality,coverage,relevance and currency (being uptodate) of these publications is highly debatable

2.ICAP supervised/approved teachers.....i mean if icap can award the degree it should also do some effort to encourage involvement of its members in education
to put it more clearly...

2.1 icap board of studies should be expanded and training and guidance shoud be given by icap to members involved in teaching profession
2.2 icap should start a certification course to be awarded to CA teachers...showing their competence at teaching CA subjects
2.3 minimum contribution by members to educational material should be established-

3.Analysis of student result should be given to the student containing details such as

exact marks scored by the student

4.Just like CPD activities are done...so should be activities done for students
An easy thing woud be to make all CPD material available to students as well.

5.Education of professional level should be also formalised like that of CA. Inter

6.Arrangement should be made to have CA-Inter degree given equivalence to Pakistani university degrees
for example by allowing students to give urdu/pak studies/islamiat exams and get equivalence to bachelor degrees of
govt universities (private universities are already doing this to make money)

7.Syllabus should be more clearly defined-especially clear boundaries shoud be established

8.Solutions are published now but they are not those against which exams are compared...
The exact marking key solutions should be published

9.Multiple choice questions should be set in exams

10.Atleast 1 day gap should be there between two papers (untill MCQ's are not introduced and memorization papers are set)



I believe none of the above mentioned actions/policies affects the quality/standard of the exam.

More suggestions are welcome

P.S i would also appreciate if qualified persons would comment on these..

[noman]

no replies??

[noman]

i see mr.kamran is back again...i hope he will contribute to this thread and others also ...

[kamranACA]

Dear,

I believe ICAP is seriously working on the front you have pointed out. We can see a huge shift of focus if we compare the periods earlier to 1994 with the phase we witnessed from 1995 to 2002 (probably) and then with the phase covering period from 2003 to the date of this post.

However, this is not a closed ended process and we have to move on with all international developments. As far as the contents of syllabus are concerned I believe ICAP is not ignoring any thing material which other institutes of the world are focusing on.

As far as availability of guidance material, books, good teachers, libraries, and sources of information etc are concerned, I must ask you to keep in mind the limitations of this nation. We are a country the people of which face 12-20 hours load shedding as a routine process in the 21st century. We have the world's largest canal system the banks of which are still not built despite of receiving loads of funds for such rehabilitation. The "majority" of our public has no access to any quality doctors, lab, medication and health counseling facilities at all. The people of our villages have no option except to drink "DAMM KIYA HUA PAAANI" if some snake bites them. They don't even know what the venom fighting medicines are? Thee security situation of our country is of a unique nature. No one can tell with certainty that would he come back to home safely. There is a lot more to discuss the conditions which our nation is bound to face.

However, I don't believe that any of these conditions should make a reason for us to step back. Like-wise there is no reason for us to say that the issues of students cannot be resolved. The thing is, we have to improve with the time. We are dependent upon very limited resources at each facet of life.

Coming back to your point, I am convinced of your suggestions made at point NO. 1, 2.1, 3, 4, and 6 (with the modification that graduate degree of commerce or business should be available). I am not convinced with rest of suggestions. Why? I am short of time to comment on in detail.

I feel that the students should send their suggestions to ICAP and its education committee and board of studies. Students should also raise such issues at CASA level that is the most important forum for them. The contribution by every one counts.

Thanks for raising the voice.


Regards,


KAMRAN.