Macroom student scoops top prize for excellence
LAURA PHELAN WON TWO ACADEMIC AWARDS ON A MOMENTOUS SATURDAY
MACROOM student Laura Phelan received two awards for academic excellence on the same day she was conferred with membership of the Institute of Certified Public Acoountants (CPA) Ireland in Croke Park.
The first award recognises her accomplishment as the top performer with a paper on information systems.
The second award recognises her accomplishment as the top performer of those who complete a paper on Corporate Laws and Governance
President of CPA Ireland Cormac Mohan, speaking at the 2018 conferring of new CPA accountants, called for renewed efforts across the accountancy profession in Ireland to achieve gender parity.
The call was made as CPA Ireland achieves an equal number of men and women amongst its members.
Mr Mohan said, “Today there are 5,000 more men in Ireland working in accountancy than there are women; this represents a gender gap of 14 per cent.
“In any modern business or workplace, gender diversity is essential. Countless studies have shown that it is beneficial to both business performance and employee morale.
“Closing the gender gap within five years is realistic and should be an industry wide goal.”
He said they have to make the profession an “attractive career path” to new entrants and increase the access routes into the profession. At CPA Ireland we have taken big steps in this regard over the past year, including the introduction of CPA FastTrack,” he said.
“This programme, introduced in twelve third-level institutes nationwide, credits students for work experience obtained as part of their de- gree qualification, as part of their professional training requirement.
“This reduces the time it takes to qualify as an accountant by a full year and allows newly qualified CPAs to begin practicing as accountants more quickly,” he said.