The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) has signed a memorandum of understanding accrediting Makerere University to teach professional accounting papers.

This means eight of the 13 papers undertaken during the professional accountancy course, will be exempted to Makerere University students while undertaking the ACCA professional course.

Speaking during the signing of the MOU at Makerere University, the country manager of ACCA Uganda, Charlotte Kukunda, said that starting next year (2023) Makerere University Bachelor of Commence-Accounting students would be undertaking only five examination papers out of the 13 of the professional course.

Prof. Eria Hisali the Principal college of business and management sciences speaking during the signing of the MOU at Makerere University. (Photo by Agnes Nantambi)

“This means that before being certified as a professional accountant, Makerere students will be exempted from eight examination papers and will be sitting for only five out of 13 examinations to attain full ACCA qualifications effective 2023 to 2027,” said Kukunda.

According to Kukunda, this comes with a reduction in the years a student is meant to spend doing a professional course as well as reducing the money spent on the eight courses.

Currently, it takes one about three years to complete the ACCA course if a student is doing all the 13 courses. However, with the exception of the eight professional papers, one can finish the professional course within six months.

“Within the MOU, we are recognizing the achievement of the B. Com programme exemptions accreditation which means that a student of Makerere who has pursued the B. Com program gets eight of the ACCA programs exempted.

This means that we have acknowledged that, the course they have done at the university has been reviewed and aligned with the ACCA modules to an extent that we are comfortable exempting them,” she said.

On the side of employers, Kukunda said this was one way of connecting industry to the education sector.

“We know what the employers and the market place are looking for, they need relevant skills where someone can deliver on job,” she said.
She observed that most universities were building the body of knowledge of the students but were not structured to skill students.

“When we align our syllabus to theirs, it means the student is getting prepared for the working world where someone has the degree and the professional skill of delivering at the work place,” she said.

Most students, she noted, have been lacking the skills to deliver work while the employers are looking for skills, which are broad ranging from interpersonal communication skill, timekeeping among others.

The team posing for a photo after the signing ceremony. (Photo by Agnes Nantambi)

“If you notice these days among interns, they can only show that they have learnt something, but they are not able to do what they have learnt.

What the professional courses do is, if its taxation, you must be able to do a proper computational of what somebody should be paying or advise an organization on how they should comply and be ready to do the work other than learning from the field.”

“This makes them more relevant and they can become good entrepreneurs who can even do something on their own,” she said.

The principal college of Business and Management Sciences, Prof. Eria Hisali, said: “In addition to training and equipping students with knowledge and skills, we are also integrating professional courses in the Bachelor of Commerce so that we produce a highly competitive graduate.”

Dr Hisali advised the ACCA team to maximize the synergies presented by the partnership. “In addition to training and professionalism, consider working within your mandate to undertake joint research, joint community outreach programmes and joint staff exchanges among others,” he said.
 
The dean school of Business, Prof. Godfrey Akileng, expressed pleasure with the new exceptions saying they will see more graduates pursuing the ACCA qualifications.

“With this accreditation ACCA regards highly the quality of the curriculum, training and the assessment of accounting of Makerere University Bachelors of Commerce Programme,” he said.