Chartered Accountants Program - candidate and employer satisfaction

Over the last two years the Chartered Accountants Program was redesigned, with four new technical modules and a new Ethics & Business Application module introduced. Along with increased timetable flexibility, these changes addressed the skills shortage by fasttracking technically competent, workready graduates.

This year saw 18,667 module enrolments by candidates on the Chartered Accountants Program (a 19 per cent increase on the previous year). Feedback from candidates is encouraging, with satisfaction survey results showing rises in a number of important areas, including:

• Willingness to recommend the Program - 88 per cent
• Advocacy of the Program - 71 per cent
• Relevance to career - 87 per cent
• Technical content - 81 per cent.

Employers surveyed in June 2007 recorded an overall satisfaction level with the Program of 82 per cent, and 91 per cent would recommend the Program.

Careers marketing

Careers marketing has continued to promote accounting as a career and Chartered Accounting as the designation of choice to students in high school and university. It also communicates this message to key influencers, such as academics, employers and careers advisors. This year, a record number of people attended careers marketing events for high school and university students and employers (more than 3000 students and more than 200 employers).

The Chartered Accountants achiever work experience program was also a major draw card. This program awards first-year business students with paid work experience positions in accounting organisations, allowing employers to build their profile, form relationships with talented students, and assess candidates on the job. Meanwhile, students get a flavour of what to expect in an accounting career. This year, the Institute awarded 185 students with work experience positions in more than 100 accounting organisations.

This initiative was considered a major success, as it addressed an issue of concern for members, employed an academic with proven credentials and generated wider debate.

Meanwhile, the Institute has been leading debate in a number of other areas, publishing reports on topics such as financial planning, broad-based business reporting and the use of judgment in auditing. Also released was a white paper summarising key observations from a forum on ethics, held by the Institute in 2006.

Institute membership