Training offices play a vital role

The final three years of the aspiring chartered accountants’ [CAs(SA)] journey are spent in the workplace gaining real world experience. Workplace experience is done through a formal learnership agreement and can be done in audit or in commerce. The public sector offers training opportunities too.

A trainee’s time is spent at one of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (Saica’s) accredited training offices around SA.

Nwabisa Tsengiwe, senior executive: marketing, communications and PR at Saica, says this gives trainees more options for the type of organisation they can undertake their training with, while still meeting the standards the institute sets.

“Becoming fully qualified as a CA(SA) cannot be achieved without completing this training component through a formal training contract (and learnership agreement) at a Saica-accredited training office. Every CA(SA) in SA has been through this aspect of the qualification process.”

OPPORTUNITIES

She says demand for CAs(SA) is on the rise and this means there are an increasing number of aspiring CAs(SA) seeking to qualify. So while there have rarely been issues around trainees finding suitable training contract positions, Saica could make use of more organisations willing and able provide these training opportunities, subject to meeting its training office accreditation criteria.

In this regard, trainees qualifying under Saica’s Thuthuka Bursary Fund have an advantage in that when organisations decide to help fund the bursary, they also agree to taking on trainees for the training contract portion of their qualification journey.

Becoming an accredited training office requires more from organisations than simply their willingness to take on trainees as they have to meet Saica quality assurance criteria.

Saica senior executive: professional development Mandi Olivier heads up the division responsible for all aspects related to qualifying as a CA(SA) and, together with her team, is responsible for managing the relationships with training offices and trainees.

She aims to make sure that the training and practical experience candidates receive is of a high quality, and that minimum standards are met. This is so that Saica can be sure trainees are developing their professional competence which will in turn assist them in passing the Assessment of Professional Competence.

STANDARDS

“Before we accredit an organisation as a training office there is a stringent process which it must go through. This is done to ensure the training and practical experience trainees receive is aligned to the Saica competency framework and that the quality is the same regardless of which training office and elective they choose.

“This is to ensure standards are maintained across the profession,” Tsengiwe says.