ICWAI Offering CAT Course
The Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India (ICWAI) will offer a one-year Certificate in Accounting Technicians (CAT) course for those who have completed Plus Two. Kunal Banerjee, president, ICWAI, told a press conference here recently that the course would serve a two-fold purpose. One, it would be available even for those who were not graduates, and the other was that it would address the expected shortage of one million junior level accountants in the country.A tie-up with Chartered Institute of Management Accounts (CIMA), the U.K., would enable the ICWAI to offer a fast track CIMA qualification for cost accountants. “The CIMA syllabus has a certificate level, managerial level and strategic level. ICWAI qualified personnel will be able to join at the strategic level. They will be exempted from writing 11 papers out of the total 14. Reciprocally, CIMA qualified personnel can attempt the ICWAI examination and need to qualify only in six papers,” Mr. Banerjee said.
As a joint initiative with Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), a B. Com. in Financial and Cost Accounting, and a M. Com. in Management Accounting and Financial Strategies had been launched. According to M. Shanmugam, Regional Director, IGNOU Regional Centre, Madurai, students who had completed Plus Two could pursue a foundation course in ICWAI simultaneously with the B. Com. course of IGNOU. “Intermediate ICWAI passed students can pursue final course of ICWAI and M. Com. simultaneously. ICWAI students will be exempted from certain papers,” Mr. Shanmugam said.
