Firstly I would like to thank CA Aniket Talati for approaching the students (& other experts too ) community through his tweet for suggestions w.r.t changes / reforms to current CA curriculum.

Background : CRET [ committee for review of education and training ] was formed by ICAI for which suggestions were invited from public at large by CA Aniket Talati. This petition is in response to the invite. Though I feel its very late to form such committee, I’m presenting my thoughts over here. 

Disclaimer : The sole intention for this petition is to strengthen the policies / procedures adopted for CA Curriculum. Nothing contained in this petition must be viewed / construed as defaming any person or entity etc. Information taken, was publicly available over world wide web. Suggestions mentioned must be taken in positive spirit with an objective as stated above. 

Before proceeding further, Genuine suggestions if any faced by the students, are welcome. Kindly dm me over LinkedIn so that I can re-edit the post.

Reforms to Curriculum

1. ITT / OP / ADVIT / GMCS / MCS

Ground Reality :

a) Only trainings in metro cities are somewhat better but not up to mark.

b) Tier - II &  Tier - III cities, most of the students perceive it as less value added, because of lack of trained professionals / trainers & also due to testing methods, the way students are being tested for the trainings inculcated aren’t sufficient. the exams conducted are ridiculous.

c) NPV of the trainings is hardly up to the mark.

d) Currently institute has a set of curriculums from their side which has to be followed by the trainers. This is not been done well at the locations mentioned above. Students are being taught 10 to 30 excel functions & that’s it.

Measures required : 

a) Enter MOU with MOOC platforms such as Udemy, LinkedIn learning, google education etc. for various trainings. Students should mandatorily finish the courses as selected by the institute & are free to learn other things in the platform.

b) Increase the training period to 30 days each for technology training & soft skills. Trainings must be rigorous such that every student should feel an absolute change after completion.

c) Every student needs to be well versed with MS office suite / POWER BI / Financial modelling / at the minimum. Other technologies such as G suite / RPA / SQL / SAP / TALLY / Quickbooks – ensure that they are certified for basics in platforms mentioned above.

d) Students must be given mandatory tasks [ basic & advanced as may be decided by the trainer ] for minimum trainings [ I.e., MS office suite / Power BI / Tableau etc ]

e) Ensure that students are inculcated with basics of emerging technologies such as AI / ML / Blockchain / Digital Marketing etc.2

2. Courses offered by ICAI

• Currently these certifications are only available to members of ICAI. I request the institute to allow CA FINAL students to pursue such courses.
• The cost of such certifications must be reduced for students.
• Also requesting to create new certifications which are student centric.

3. Electives 

1) Firstly, the initiative taken by ICAI to include electives is to be appreciated.

2) I request the institute to include more options as electives, Institute may reconsider the option of including Multi disciplinary case study as elective, as many of the students aren’t opting for the subject, I may or may not be correct, request the institute to carry on a research / student’s poll in this regard.

3) Some suggestions regarding new electives to be included – Forensic Audit / Valuations etc.

4) Revision to current elective papers

• Paper 6A - Include Quants chapter [ I still didn’t understand the reason for removal of the chapter ], Important & emerging areas in RM such as IT risk / Market risk / Climate risk  are completely missing in the syllabus, request institute to include such topics in the syllabus.
• Paper 6D – New topics to be included are Consumer protection Act / Intellectual property laws / Right to Information Act, which are very helpful in real life.
• Paper 6E – Fund Accounting / Forensic Aspects must be included.

4. Open Book exams for FR / LAW / AUDIT / DIRECT & INDIRECT TAX.

Ground reality :

a) Just to sum up in one statement, watch this video at 2:05 where AIR 1 CA-F of May 18 says “theory ratna hai” literally translates to “theory must be mugged up”, at 2:15 nothing there in ISCA as such which needs to be understood”, at 2:33 “Audit technical words needs to mugged up”, at 2:52 “formulas needs to be mugged up” at 3:30 “costing theory needs to be mugged up” at 12:34  for SFM, at 13:29 “audit technical words ratna hai”.

The above statements are also endorsed by AIR 1 CA-F May 19 & both the students are also rankers in other levels of examinations. AIR 1 CA-F May 18 has also received 3 medals for best paper, awarded by the institute itself.

I appreciate his efforts for memorizing the provisions. But this isn’t the way that should be carried on for future.

The intention of the persons in the video was only to help students for scoring marks in exams.

In fact, both the rankers are teachers now, So it may have an impression on students at large.

This has to be changed & can only be changed by the institute.

Measures Required :

a) A professional exam like CA must be inculcating strong analytical / Interpretation / creativity / out of box thinking in students.

b) In exams mentioned above MEMORY power of students is being tested, which is not so useful in the generation which we are in.

c) Mugging up hundreds of provisions from books serves for no purpose when in real life we already have the text books & the thing that is missing is interpretation & problem solving.

I have read this Einstein quote on my social media :

“ When asked for speed of light Albert Einstein replied : I do not carry so much of information in my mind since it is readily available in books. The value of a education is not learning many facts but training the mind to think creatively ”.

d) Adequate memory skills which are required for a professional to possess are already tested in CPT & IPCC level, So I request the institute to make the above mentioned exams open book & analytical approach as mentioned in 7th point below i.e, Conduct of examination.

e) Making the exam open book completely eliminates the need for mugging up the provisions, ensure that questions are asked based on relevant real life case studies across the world.

f) Include simulation based testing methodologies as done in US CPA examination, which is the best way to test these subjects. Not only we should open chapters abroad, but we should also get inspired by the testing methodologies from abroad.

5. Paper 4 : Corporate & economic laws 

Include RTI / consumer protection act / intellectual property laws in the syllabus, Which are important in real life for CA’s.

6. Electives shall also be made at IPCC level which will be open book based.

7. Consistency 

As far as practical, ensure there are strict dates for releasing suggested answers / RTP / MTP & results, this helps students to plan their schedule in proper way. Do not take this as a simple statement, this is very much required.

Ex : At any circumstances MTP shall be released 40 days before exam.

8. Mistakes / Errors in curriculum

a) I always wonder why there are lots of mistakes in CA curriculum, apart from typographical & clerical, many of them are logical mistakes, which I have observed during my preparations.

b) MTP’s / RTP’s / Study materials / practice manuals what not? you name it. Attention is hereby given for paper 6A October 2020 MTP series which was revised 3 times in 3 days. Every material has a corrigendum attached to it,  25% of the students still doesn’t know what corrigendum is. There are times when revised corrigendum was issued for corrigendum.

c) Few students are such that even though they knew the correct answer, they think that they are wrong since institute has provided a different answer.

d) Believe it or not having such mistakes creates lots of inconvenience while studying, whole day gets wasted few times.

e) I have personally read books of FRM & CFA and also asked few students pursuing ACCA, I never found a single mistake in the study materials be it typography be it logical, and I was told the same by the students pursuing ACCA. I really wonder why an institute having 72 years of rich experience is facing this issue. 

f) I have heard from vice president saying that the materials are being revised, but yet I find the same being repeated in MTP’s or RTP’s. This is a serious issue.

9. Conduct of exam 

a) I request the institute to conduct exam online at prometric test centers, I understand the structure of the examination makes it difficult to do so, but it’s not impossible. Examinations can be conducted online very well, as happening in other country’s CA examinations.

There are numerous advantages for the institute in doing so.

b) Make the papers 100 % objective across IPC & Final levels [ When i say 100 % objective it includes Task based simulations too ]

c) The level of toughness for all electives needs to be same for particular attempt, It cannot be like Paper 6A was easy & Paper 6B was very tough & so on.

d) New age testing methodologies from other professional courses are provided in the link given below.

https://www.becker.com/blog/cpa/2021-cpa-exam-changes-what-you-need-to-know

Reforms to Articleship

1. Industrial Training

a) Allow students to go for Industrial training from the very beginning itself [ currently its after 2nd year for a period of 1 year ].

• Reason : Why Institute wants to restrict a student who wants to opt for industrial training from year 1 itself, Training is a part of CA curriculum & Right to education is our fundamental right. Request institute to amend the provisions.
• There are few students who resort to dummy articleship & work somewhere, since they feel that they aren’t getting exposed to proper knowledge in the present firm.

b) 6 months mandatory industrial training is a must for every student.

2. Dummy Articleship

Measures Required :

• Please bring some provisions to put an end to such practices.
• Cancel the license of CA deemed to be guilty for such period as may be appropriate.

Measures already initiated by Institute :

a)      Conducting exams during the articleship period.

3. Stipend

a) Mandatory stipend for articleship must be increased to 5k pm at least.

b) Students of LAW / Medical etc are paid much better than what is currently being paid to CA students.

c) The current rates [ 2k pm ] are hardly sufficient for meeting travelling expenses in tier 1 cities.

d) Students must file monthly bank statements to ICAI to keep a track on stipend.

4. Grievance portal 

Grievance portal must be setup to intimate the irregularities & grievances of articleship students anonymously.

Other MISC

1. IMO students at final level deserve voting rights to elect institute representatives, also to have their issues to be placed in front of the institute.

2. Ensure that announcements be made only at ICAI website or at official handles of ICAI over social media.