By Fina Scroppo
Photography: Paul Orenstein
The new qualification process provides CAs with
the tools to compete in today's global market
"Welcome to Ashby Cohen," announces Susan Ashby, the firm's managing partner, to students visiting for the first time. Ashby Cohen seems like a typical accounting firm — it has several partners, a senior accountant, administrative staff and a host of clients. But there are no bricks or mortar housing this company. That's because AC is a virtual firm on the Internet, a portal. It is designed to give students enrolled in the Atlantic School of Chartered Accountancy an opportunity to apply their knowledge in a simulated working environment. This is a training ground of sorts for future CAs and just one path in the move by provincial institutes/ordres to education reform in Canadian chartered accounting.
In the West, articling students such as Devawn Ramos from Terrace, British Columbia, are seeing similar changes to the region's CA certification program. Ramos, a mother of two and working with local firm McAlpine & Co., is enrolled in a 24-month curriculum where learning materials are distributed and evaluated through the the Internet in 10-week modules and later applied in interactive three-day workshops.
Throughout her studies as part of the CA School of Business (CASB), she has acted as a financial adviser to simulated startups such as Natalee's Gourmet Foods and has watched them grow into corporations in just a couple of years. Along the way, she has prepared financial statements, assessed partnership agreements and examined the tax consequences of incorporating. She has also developed advanced skills by creating a disaster recovery plan for simulated company Restaurant Supplies and has taken another simulated company (Western Canadian Environmental Systems Ltd.) public –– all before becoming a chartered accountant.
For Ramos, the change to the West's curriculum from in-class sessions in large urban centres to online, interactive study has meant she can enroll in a CA certification program this year instead of holding off until her children grow up or choosing another designation altogether. "It's opened up a lot of doors for me," says Ramos, 29. "I hesitated for quite a few years. I knew the direction I wanted to go into but every time I thought about leaving my family for extended periods I got a panic attack, so when the pilot project came up, I really jumped at the opportunity to get involved."
So far, says Ramos, the opportunity has paid off. "What we're learning is definitely more functional. The program makes students more valuable to employers because we're not just learning the technical stuff, we are [also] applying the knowledge," she says. "Now, I understand concepts a lot better. I could take work a lot further. Before, I was limited to what was done on the file last year, but now I can take work to another level without being prodded in that direction."
Rory Reinbolt, Ramos' employer and partner at McAlpine, says he has come to appreciate the new program. "From an employer's perspective, we were a little bit dubious at first. We wondered how it would work because it was new, and we wanted to make sure that, with Devawn's limited amount of time, she took something she could handle without having to do a lot of travel," he says.
But once he reviewed the program, Reinbolt was impressed with its practicality, especially how it applies to the work and clients coming through McAlpine. "It makes for a more applicable CA. The material you're looking at is more relevant, more of what you're going to see in the real world."
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REFORM TIMELINE
1996: Report of Inter-Institute Vision Task Force envisaged a modern finance professional
1997: Education Reeingineering Task Force (ERTF) established. Its mandate was to design a blueprint for achieving the changes outlined by Vision Task Force
1998: ERTF released report recommending a new education format and delivery system. It also developed the CA Competency Map — outlined six areas of technical expertise and pervasive qualities of chartered accountants
2000: CICA Qualifications Committee charged with leading education services toward the reforms |
Education reform is in a transitional phase, but students seem confident the changes are necessary to keep up with the global marketplace. The new process gives CA students the "competitive edge" they need to meet the demands of the business world, says Norbert Woo, a co-op student with the University of Waterloo in Ontario who is writing the UFE this month. Magalie Lebel Lemire, who passed the UFE in 2001 and has completed her practical training with Dessureault, Lemire, Désaulniers, Drolet, Gélinas & Lanouette as part of the Quebec ordre's educational requirement, says a more integrated program will help students learn better. "The learning curve is shorter."
For the builders of the new education and evaluation process, the motivations to reform the system go further than merely creating a competitive edge. "The idea was to broaden the CA designation without letting go of what we had — the strength, the brand image, the reputation — not just persuade the marketplace we were broader," says Nick Kirton, partner at KPMG in Calgary and chair of the CICA Qualifications Committee charged with leading education services over the past two and half years. "Many CAs already had substantial finance skills and much more information technology in the kitbag. Inherently, the expectation of what the chartered accountant was had broadened. We were, in fact, ahead of our own education program."
Expectations of the modern CA had grown so much, says Kirton, that the CA Syllabus, upon which the education and evaluation systems are based, continued to expand over the years. "The syllabus, which was in place, got bigger and bigger all the time. More things were being thrown into it — more finance, more information technology, other things as well — and it was busting at the seams. It was a conundrum faced with overload and there had to be a better way to do it."
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CURRICULUM BREAKDOWN
WESTERN CANADA AND THE TERRITORIES — CA School of Business
Education program format: five modules delivered in 10 weeks of distributed learning over the Internet. Each module is followed by a three-day session where groups come together, with varied interactive exercises such as case analyses and presentations. Following the UFE (module 6), students must complete a focus component (module 7). Required work experience: 30 months
Visit www.casb.com for more details on its curriculum
ONTARIO — The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario
Education program format: 51-credit hour requirements (or 17 specific courses), before entering the School of Accountancy. A core knowledge exam must be successfully completed in order to attend the full-time segment of the school, which includes a six-month self-study program and three-week full-time program of interactive case-study work. Candidates must pass an end-of-school exam in order to attempt the UFE. Required work experience: 30 months. (About half of the candidates are co-op university students that alternate work and school terms.)
Visit www.icao.ca/public/career/be_a_ca/index.html for more details on its curriculum
QUEBEC — Ordre des comptables agréés du Québec
Education program format: the Professional Education Program (PEP) is structured as a 30-credit graduate program, which extends three to four sessions, depending on the university. Some universities offer the option of completing a master's degree. The program sequence includes full sessions with courses and a combination of part-time study and practical training.
Required work experience: 24 months
Visit http://releve.ocaq.qc.ca/fr/pfp/programme_par_universite.asp for more details on its curriculum.
ATLANTIC CANADA AND BERMUDA — Atlantic School of Chartered Accountancy
Education program format: students begin the professional program with a Tax Technical course, followed by four modules; the first is a two-week face-to-face course; the other modules are each delivered in approximately nine weeks of distributed learning over the Internet. Each module is followed by a three-day workshop with interactive exercises. Modules are followed by a Finalist Preparation Program to help prepare for the UFE.
Required work experience: 30 months
Visit www.asca.ns.ca/pr_descriptions.htm for more details on its curriculum |
A similar sentiment was heard in 1996, when the journey to reform began with the release of the Report of the Inter-Institute Vision Task Force. It first envisaged a modern finance professional capable of meeting the needs of a rapidly changing marketplace, yet still trained and evaluated according to the rigorous traditions associated with the CA designation. To achieve this, the profession struck the Education Reengineering Task Force (ERTF) a year later. Its mandate was to design a blueprint for achieving the changes outlined by the Vision Task Force.
"The ERTF was trying to [devise] the best methods available today for delivering education and they came up with a competency-based program, which really was leading edge when they were thinking about it," says David Smith, CICA president and CEO and former chair of the Qualifications Committee. Since 2000, the committee has weighed the alternatives generated by educators and the national and provincial institutes.
After interviewing employers, students and educators, says Smith, the ERTF "believed that the combination of how to apply knowledge, use knowledge and come up with solutions really was what you did every day on the job, so trying to recreate that environment to give people competency skills to do that was behind their recommendations." That was a shift from the older syllabus method, where students studied individual topics instead of integrated solutions, adds Smith. "Moving toward having access to information within the evaluation versus having to retain the knowledge to apply it in the evaluation was also quite a change."
The ERTF's efforts were further refined in a subsequent document known as the CA Competency Map, which organizes CA competencies into two groups that articling students are required to master: six areas of technical expertise or core competencies (organizational effectiveness, control and risk management; finance; taxation; assurance; performance measurement; and information and IT); and pervasive qualities essential to the development of the Vision CA, such as ethical behaviour and professionalism, adaptability to change and communications skills.
A couple of years later, when the CICA Qualifications Committee was charged with leading education services toward the reforms, it had an enormous responsibility. "I don't know how many times we would lean back in our chairs and ask 'are we on track?'" says Kirton, who was an original member of the committee before being appointed chair. "The single answer to that question was to quote the Vision CA. We were trying to modify reform education so as to provide for the Vision CA to emerge from the process. That was our single rallying cry."
The committee used other measuring sticks to gauge its work. Among them, says Kirton, was whether the reforms would enhance the attractiveness of the CA designation. "Our work was all for naught if what was created was not attractive to potential candidates. At the same time it had to be responsive to employer needs and the public interest. That's fundamental to Vision."
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COMPETENCY VS. SYLLABUS
Starting next year, the qualification process for Canadian chartered accountants will be competency-based. Until now, the uniform final examination (UFE) has been founded on the CA Syllabus, which outlines specific knowledge and skills candidates are required to master.
A competency-based exam is based on "a professional education focused on building competencies or skills — what you need to be able to do, which includes what you need to know," according the CICA's document Preparing for the 2003 UFE: An Introduction to the New Uniform Evaluation Process.
In other words, says Nick Kirton, chairman of the CICA Qualifications Committee, the new evaluation process, along with education system, is getting much closer to the reality of practising as a chartered accountant. "Being competent to practise as a CA doesn't fit as well with the image of memorizing a bunch of facts as set out in the syllabus and regurgitating them onto an exam as it does with being able to access, know what to reference, access reference sources, pull from here, pull from there, and integrate and analyse and provide a comprehensive solution to a problem."
The move from a syllabus-based versus a competency-based system will see a different format for the 2003 final evaluation, where the multiple choice component is replaced with business case studies. "You couldn't use a multiple choice measurement system in a competency-based program because it doesn't test you on how you can use this information versus having retained the information," says David Smith, CICA president and CEO.
Smith likens a competency-trained CA to a competent surgeon. "You prefer to have a doctor who knows how to actually do the entire operation versus one who is specialized only in how to make the cut," he says. "You want to have a doctor that completely understands it from one end to the other. |
Today, the new process has meant fine-tuning the education delivery systems for most regions and a complete overhaul for others, as well as a new structure for the final evaluation — with an emphasis on evaluation versus examination. While each institute/ordre is responsible for delivering CA education, they do so through four separate regional systems: Ontario; Quebec; the Atlantic School of Chartered Accountancy (ASCA) representing the Atlantic provinces and Bermuda; and the newly created CASB in the West, which serves the four western provinces and three territories. In each system, the CA Competency Map has been integrated.
Although the system falls short of the unified national delivery system initially proposed by the ERTF, education reform is still a national success, says Kirton. "There's no doubt a central administration would make it more efficient, especially for large firms [that] have offices across the country, but there are legitimate issues of infrastructure, financial implications, people implications and political implications."
CASB, which adopted the ERTF's recommendation for a more unified delivery system, employs a modular case-study format, focusing on different companies through various stages of growth and transition. Comprised of five courses or modules, it delivers and evaluates learning electronically over the Internet. Each course takes 10 weeks to complete, followed by a three-day workshop where students come together to build skills through interactive exercises, such as case analyses, debates and presentations. An additional module is required after candidates successfully pass the UFE. In the final module, students choose a focus or particular area of interest, not to be confused with a specialty.
Although the ERTF initially suggested a focus component as part of the new education system, CASB was the only region to adopt the principle. For the others, it was an obvious point of contention. Some argued it was premature to streamline candidates before CA qualification; others argued it would be too difficult to incorporate a focus segment into a program that integrates a number of technical competencies. In the end, many agreed on the principle behind focus — that attaining the CA designation was just the beginning in a continuum of lifelong learning.
"What we're doing is making the CA route a more attractive and relevant process, and hopefully that will attract the best and the brightest," says John Brennan, FCA, chief executive officer of CASB. "The standard benefits that come from a distributed learning process is that it gives students some flexibility because they can do it from wherever they are. The program has challenges because students still have to work a regular work week."
The ASCA began about 30 years ago to help deliver CA education in the East. Since 1997, it has embraced the capabilities computers offer and has been delivering online interactive materials to students, says Dan Trainor, its executive director. When the national reform initiative was coalescing, ASCA set up its own task force — Blueprint For Change — representing industry, education and practice to assess how the reforms would impact the region, and it determined ASCA was headed in the right direction.
The result is a program with similarities to CASB's format, with a few differences: students begin the professional program with a tax technical course, followed by the first of four modules — a two-week person-to-person course; the remaining three modules are monitored by facilitators and delivered in nine weeks of distributed simulated learning over the Internet. Like CASB's program, each module is proceeded by a three-day workshop with similar interactive exercises.
At the end of the fourth module, students are required to take the Finalist Preparation Program to help them prepare for the UFE.
"We think the changes we're making to the program are going to make it a lot more engaging for the students and it's going to be more fun," says Trainor. "And if it's more fun, they're more likely to spend more time learning, and the time they spend learning is going to be a lot more effective." There is no doubt the new program is fun — there's teamwork, role-playing and Internet learning. When students log on, they're greeted by digitized images and sometimes there is music playing, which makes the work seem almost like a computer game.
Unlike in the East and West, where students had to travel to a limited number of universities, Ontario and Quebec have far-reaching university networks to help deliver professional programs. In Quebec, universities have offered the Professional Education Program (PEP) as a 30-credit graduate program since 1998. It includes sessions with courses and a combination of part-time study and practical training. Since the PEP already incorporates a competency-based approach, "it will not undergo drastic changes, but adjustments will be made to adequately cover all of the fields of expertise," says Diane Messier-Marcotte, the vice-president of education and professional development at the Ordre des comptables agréés du Québec. Quebec was in fact an early user of the Web, as some 60 case studies have been posted on the ordre's website since the PEP was introduced. Messier-Marcotte added that new course material will include more information technology and risk management case studies in the near future, in order to better reflect the Competency Map.
Ontario has been preparing for a competency-based system. For that reason, says Brian Leader, the Ontario institute's vice-president of learning, changes to its rigorous education program won't be a "total revolution." Instead, he says, there will be evolutionary changes that will result in significant improvement over a number of years, such as the increase in the amount of e-learning.
"There's nobody standing back and saying, 'Well, we're fine, we don't have to do anything.' We know we have to do some things and we're on the road to doing those things, but we don't have to turn everything upside down right away. We want to see how we do in 2003 and then fine-tune again and learn from that as we go."
Once Ontario students fulfill a 51-credit-hour requirement (or 17 specific courses), either as part of their degree program or as a supplement to their degree, they'll need to complete a core knowledge exam to assess a minimum knowledge of technical competencies before attending the program at the School of Accountancy — what Leader calls "the professional finishing school." The school's program includes a six-month self-study program and about three weeks of full-time attendance, where students will integrate their knowledge through simulations. Candidates must then pass an end-of-school exam in order to attempt the UFE. And, within the first 12 months of working in the designated training office, they'll be required to complete a one-week staff training program.
Despite the differences in the regions' education delivery systems, they are all designed to reach a similar goal. Leader sums it up best: "What we intend to achieve is that when [people] walk into a job, from Day 1 they are able to hit the ground running. They are able to learn from their experience and develop their competencies more fully and more quickly, instead of walking into the firm and having all their knowledge content where they kind of learn their stuff in compartments, and it takes them a while to pull it all together."
For all candidates, however, the biggest uniform change involves the final evaluation process itself. The familiar four-hour-a-day, four-day exam is about to become an artifact of CA history — this month will be the last syllabus-based exam and starting in 2003, the first competency-referenced uniform evaluation will be held over three days.
While it is still called the UFE, students will no longer be tested with multiple-choice or single-subject questions; they will be required to complete three papers, one on each day, on comprehensive business simulations. (See "Rolling it out," below, for more information.) Students will also be able to access reference materials, including the CICA Handbook and Federal Income Tax Act.
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ROLLING IT OUT: SCOPE AND TIMING
The 2002 UFE was the final syllabus-based examination.
The first competency-referenced uniform evaluation will be held in 2003.
Here is what students can expect:
The 2003 UFE will be held over three days
· It will be based on the CA Competency Map
· It will comprise three papers: the first one will be a five-hour paper consisting of a single comprehensive business simulation. The second and third papers will be four hours in length, each consisting of two or more simulations.
Consistent with the competency-referenced approach, candidates will be permitted access to appropriate reference materials in the writing centres. At press time, the CICA Qualifications Committee was still investigating candidates' use of technology for computer access to reference material and computation during the 2003 uniform evaluation.
Communicating Change
Guidance on the changes to the qualification process is available in the following publications and/or guides. Electronic copies are available on the CICA website or hard copies through the various institutes/ordres.
The New CA Qualification Process — an overview of the new qualification process for current and future candidates.
Preparing for the 2003 UFE: An Introduction to the New Uniform Evaluation Process — an overview of the 2003 uniform evaluation process, including sample questions to help candidates in their studies.
FAQs and fact sheets on key elements of the new qualification process, for on-campus distribution during the recruiting season.
A candidate's version of The Competency Map to help candidates understand how the map applies to their studies, experience and preparation for the uniform evaluation. |
So how does an open-book exam stack up to the rigorous evaluation traditionally associated with the CA designation? "We were never going to create something that was less rigorous than what we had before," says Kirton. "The new evaluation process is not intended to make it less easy to become a chartered accountant. [However], it may well qualify some different people."
The CICA Qualifications Committee is considering allowing the use of computers in the 2003 UFE for reference and spreadsheet applications, the intention being to make final evaluations match the work world. However, says Kirton, security issues and costs are slowing down the progress.
But there is recent progress on other fronts, says Tim Forristal, CICA's vice-president of education: at the time of writing, new employer guidelines for approved training offices were being developed. (A pilot project to recognize a portion of a candidate's practical experience obtained outside of public practice was also in progress.)
Standards were also being created for all regions to assess their education programs and measure their compliance to national standards established by the Qualifications Committee.
"The profession has come a long way," says David Smith. "I think the spirit of the Vision will be in place in 2003, but the Vision is a continuous improvement. It's a never-ending process whereby once you're on a competency-based approach, you have to continuously monitor what competencies you need as the world continues to change, and modify that."
Smith adds it is this type of commitment to keep abreast with the evolving marketplace that will keep CAs top of mind. "The biggest distinction we have as chartered accountants is the high standard we have and I think the new education program raises those standards by applying new methodology and the latest techniques — giving people the skills they require to be first-rate chartered accountants," he says.
"In fact, raising your standards and continuing to have high standards is one of the reasons why when you do surveys in the public, they distinguish chartered accountants from other designations — be it legal or accounting — as being a very high standard and that was one of the things that was important to retain because it is what creates part of our overall brand."
Candidates such as Devawn Ramos and Norbert Woo will be counting on it.
With files from Ruby Andrew
Fina Scroppo is a freelance writer and editor based in Maple, Ontario. |
