ICPAU qualifies 127 more Accountants as syllabus changes

By Silvia Nyambura

The Institute of Certified Public Accountants (ICPAU) has today announced that 127 students have successfully completed the Certified Public Accountants (CPA) course for the August 2015 diet. These have qualified to be registered as professional accountants.

According to the Public Accountants Examinations Board (PAEB) Secretary Mathew Bukenya, there were 3,289 candidates who sat  the exams in August. This is a drop compared to the 5,313 registered in June of this year. Bukenya attributes this to the fact that this is a new examination diet.

“Previously, we used to have two examination diets in June and November every year. This year, PAEB introduced a 3rd diet to provide for the transition to a new syllabus examinable next year. This diet also catered for those students that did not find time to sit in June 2015,” he said.

PAEB is implementing the CPA syllabus change in accordance with section 16 of the Accountants Act 2013. According to Clause (a), PAEB has the mandate to determine the syllabi and curricular for ICPAU courses. The new syllabus, which is benchmarked against international standards will improve the quality of accountancy training and the professionals produced thereafter.

“The accountancy profession serves the financial and to a greater extent, the non-financial information needs of a broad range of decision makers. These include investors, various organizations, suppliers, customers, government and agencies as well as the public. Accountants’ ability to satisfy users’ information needs therefore contributes to an efficient economy, creating value to society,” he added.

While the average pass rate for August improved to 38.5% from 36.2% in June 2015, it remained low. ICPAU Vice Chairman Protazio Begumisa said, “It is normal for the pass rate to be low. These exams are hard and for a good reason. We cannot hone professional accountants on simple exams. We need to work with people who understand and uphold the standards of our profession.”