In line with market realities, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) has reviewed its examination syllabus to safeguard the integrity of the profession, update the course contents and ensure that the institutes’ certificate remains globally competitive.
Accordingly, the contents of the new syllabus have been re-structured and re-arranged to adequately capture and present contemporary issues in the profession in a more easy-to-understand manner. Also, the review has so far reduced the number of subjects in the syllabus to fifteen from sixteen.
Speaking at the unveiling of the new 2019 professional examinations syllabus in Lagos, the President of ICAN, Alhaji Isma’ila Zakari explained that the review of the syllabus takes place every five years, thus, the action is overtly profound, since the extant syllabus of the Institute’s Professional Examinations was unveiled in 2014. According to him, the reviewed syllabus will take effect from November, 2019.
Zakari who runs the affairs of the institute said; “We did not just arrive at this point of a new syllabus for our professional examinations. The governing council sets up a syllabus review technical Committee with membership drawn from its student affairs and professional examinations committees. The technical committee’s robust review process started with the harvesting of ideas from various stakeholders which include; examiners, employees, employment agencies among others through the administration of questionnaire. The responses were critically reviewed and dimensioned, and findings were thereafter aptly integrated into the new syllabus”.
He said with the development, students will now sit for five courses in each of the levels foundation, skills and professional examination. According to him, the five subjects in the foundation level of the new syllabus are; taxation, business, management and finance, financial accounting, management information, business law. Those in the skills level are; financial reporting audit and assurance, corporate strategic management and ethics performance management, public sector accounting and finance while those in the professional level are; corporate reporting advanced audit and assurance, strategic financial management, advanced taxation as well as case study.
“Being a key player on the global accounting profession, understand the imperative of reviewing the past and proactively envisioning the future as we embark on our diverse capacity building initiatives and programmes. Obviously, business and academic landscapes are witnessing the disruptive impact of technology. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has indeed afforded us conveniences that cannot be imagined”.
In a remark, the Chairman, professional examination committee, Dr. Innocent Okwuosa disclosed that the committee benchmarked eight international accountancy professional bodies to come up with the reviewed syllabus for local need.
“The accountant operates in a dynamic environment where business operations change from time to time and so we have to keep pace with such development. We operate in wide sector and so the various fields must be equipped with the necessary skills. Once we review our syllabus, it impact on the syllabus of universities and polytechnics too”, he stated.