The Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Uganda-ICPAU has registered a decline in performance of its accountancy students in its December 2022 examination diet.
Releasing the December 2022 examination results which were attempted by 5,052 candidates compared to the 4717 candidates sat in June 2022, Professor Laura Orobia said that there was a general decline in the performance for the three courses assessed.
According to the results, the Accounting Technicians Diploma – ATD had 150 candidates siting for the exams compared to 138 in June 2022 and there was declined average pass rate from 53 % in June 2022 to 46.8% in December 2022.
Professor Orobia explains that students’ performance in the Certified Public Accountants and Certified Tax Advisor courses was equally not impressive as compared to the previous diet.
“For Certified Tax Advisor- CTA examinations, average pass rate remained more or less the same at 44.6% in December 2022 compared to 44.7% in June 2022 while for Certified Public Accountants of Uganda-CPA examinations, the average pass rate declined slightly from 38.5% in June 2022 to 35.8% in the December 2022 sitting”-Prof Orobia.
She explains that the Examination Board had observed that candidates ought to do adequate preparations for the examinations if they are to graduate as professions.
“The candidates were unable to integrate reporting standards as required, many of them lacked application skills, others were updated on professional standards and amendments laws and taxation”-Prof Orobia noted.
Constant Mayende, the President of Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Uganda (ICPA-U) encouraged candidates that failed to take the examiners observations seriously, prepare early enough and redo the papers failed noting that the Institute is not ready to churn out half-baked accountants.
Mayende stressed that the cause of poor performance rates is already known – hinting at inadequate preparation by the students. He insisted that the institute is not ready to compromise its standards.
“It is actually the students who plan to fail by not planning their studies. If you cannot pass the exam, you will simply not be become an accountant , because we want to produce a product that will reflect badly on the accountancy profession in the field. We do not want to send out half-baked accountants,” Mayende insisted.
