There is an increasing demand for associate certified chartered accountants, all over the world. The growth and stability of economy is highly dependent on transparent analysis and precise management of accounts. ACCA Pakistan is operating with quite a huge working body in Pakistan as well as several other countries. How ACCA Pakistan is revamping Pakistan’s education sector, pushing new space for jobs and making things work on a bigger scale – Arif Masood Mirza, Head of ACCA Pakistan explains gives an insight to it.
Association of Certified Charted Accountants (ACCA) has 80 offices globally, with 450,000 students and over 120,000 members worldwide. In Pakistan, working since 1996, it has extended the membership body to about 45,000 now with 2,000 members working across industry in public practice, financial services and manufacturing. There are further 4,000 affiliates in the pipeline who are mostly fresh graduates. These are attractive numbers and it is a remarkable growth, given the local infrastructure, but how did ACCA Pakistan manage to expand so rapidly in Pakistan, in a short span of time?
The obvious answer is of course, the tech-driven organization that is now working with different local learning partners – colleges that deliver ACCA courses and organize events. As Arif Masood Mirza puts it, “CAMS and SKANS are our local platinum learning partners as they have reached the global standard in education. We have been working with these and other learning partners to develop their capacity.” He continues, “Nationwide we give a lot of training to teachers, grooming the trainers events – there are highly qualified people who deliver these training events for the faculty. And it’s always good to be a part, of actually improving the training side of things.”
Earlier, as in every other major sector, work was paper-based and all operations were performed manually for chartered accountant professionals. It was very transactional in nature which is normally called professional book-keeping and double entry – but now all that is automated, for technology is the most feasible means by which an organization can survive and compete on a global level.
Services can be commoditized easily once they are automated, which means that a lot of work, accountants traditionally did was commoditized and it was put into shared service centers. Arif says, “We have got a lot of shared service centers globally which are really driven by multinationals who house their entire transactional work in these shared services centers where you get accountants who mainly concern with the transactional postings. A lot of the things that go on with these shared services centers are transactional. What it does mean for more qualified accountants is that their work has transformed into much more partnering with business leaders. So they sit down with CEOs and directors to actually formulate the strategy. Now with technological tools, it is more of a decision making type of a role that professional accountants now have as compared to the old transactional type.”
On one hand, technology is transforming the work that accountants do but young people are required to test their abilities in terms of handling technology. To look after this issue, ACCA has gone for both an E-learning method of delivering the ACCA qualification as well as E-assessment, making sure future examinations are based on E-assessment models. These examinations will simulate real life behavior of young people expected to do at the workplace – some of that will involve bringing in gaming technology as well. On the learning side, however, there are virtual classrooms for the best lecturers around the world. ACCA Pakistan does not only have access to Pakistani lecturers but also to some of the best lecturers in the UK or Malaysia – and that is how technology is transforming academia as well as the process it involves.
Forming a global network, over 5 thousand members of ACCA Pakistan are working abroad in Middle East, Emirate States, UK, USA and other countries as ACCA Pakistan’s qualification is underpinned by international financial voting standards. Because they are entirely based on international standards, the competencies and the skills young students acquire here in Pakistan are easily transferable to New York, London or to professional practices anywhere else.
The major change technology has brought to ACCA Pakistan is innovation in teaching models. Arif explains, “We are trying to improve our network by building the capacity of our local learning partners to be able to deliver the online methodologies of learning. It’s been a method of what we call ‘co-creation’. And so we have co-created the E-learning and E-assessment products and services with local learning partners by empowering them. In fact, since 2002 we have been offering computer based exams anyway, which run very successfully.”
There is already a huge number of existing local student body who have gone through computer based programs. In addition to which ACCA Pakistan is now adding next generation of computer based exams which can rely upon simulations and more complex technologies. They are also going to rely upon blended learning – face to face learning – with some online products as well.
In terms of working with vendors, ACCA relies heavily upon approved learning partners and their complementing stakeholders. These networks of learning partners will also act as ACCA Pakistan’s examining centers using licensed software. Arif Masood adds, “We are encouraging our learning partners to have the highest possible bandwidth which is important for provision of seamless videos and online learning experiences. Wireless connectivity for students is extremely important for downloading their lectures, class notes and other related researches. Besides, there are other vendors currently working with ACCA Pakistan for the development of E-assessment exams.”
To add more value, ACCA Pakistan has brought all the required technology in-house to work with experts developing E-assessment paper for the future. Information Technology is a tool which accountants now have to improve overall efficiency and accuracy of the work which also includes budgets, plans and corporate reports.
However, there is still a lot to do in terms of future in Pakistan. Capital markets in London and USA have moved to XPLR, while in Pakistan, Microsoft Office documents and PDFs are used which are then bundled up without evaluation of standards. Arif elaborates the change, “If you use XPRL as a platform, it allows everybody’s reports to be on the same standard and you can integrate reports which also allow the comparison of different reports because they all are on XPLR. So I think some work needs to be done here. I would encourage the security exchange commission and the national professional accountancy body ICAP to work with us in developing an XPRL standard for Pakistan as well.” He further adds, “One of the transformations that we need to see is going from an undocumented informal economy to the documented formal economy. And there is a lot that can be transformed!”
As Arif says, if the economy is formally documented, there will be lots of opportunities for young accountants. The undocumented accounts need to be transformed. One could easily do that by bringing in IT. The implementation of computerization will help with the data to be easily accessed and sorted as compared to manual transaction methods. Economies with manual transactions are not transparent. With computerization, it’s at the same time a move towards computerization as well as transparency.
In addition to digitizing the work-model, ACCA Pakistan is also organizing annual conferences focusing on education and linking it up with employments to improve employability skills in youth, increasing their chances of building a promising career with ACCA qualification that pays great dividends. “So in terms of your career, and your future earning capabilities, a lot depends upon having a professional qualification. In our annual conference we will invite several Vice Chancellors from different universities, and people from technology world as well as mainstream employment. That way, we will be focusing academia, technology and their mutual collaboration,” says Arif.
The purpose of these conferences is to locate the linkages that can be made from employers back toward education. Precise analysis will help students get trained from the very beginning – keeping in focus the international standards – to qualify for great career opportunities on a global scale.
There has also been development on campaigns to attract young women into this profession as compared to others. In the next seven years, ACCA Pakistan is focusing on promoting this field among women. There have been several awareness exercises to outreach – Sidra Iqbal and Sohail Zindani are leading the campaigns by going around the country and talking to graduates; providing them with brochure, having details on career scope and success stories like Saba Rashid who works at the World Bank and Sara Faisal who works at Silk Bank, both are ACCA members. It is creating space for change.
Arif concludes his talk, “I think the changes are in terms of the trends that we will see from this year. We have set ourselves strategic goals in Pakistan to achieve over the next seven years. We are planning to expand further and make more learning partners, which will result in remarkable ways.”
You can read more about ACCA Pakistan on Facebook as well as www.ACCAglobal.com where you can also know more about learning partners and research work.
