Sunway-TES and ICAEW ink agreement to award scholarships for a world-renowned professional accounting qualification

Sunway-TES and the ICAEW recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate on a new Sunway TES-ICAEW Global Accountant Scholarship Scheme for SPM 9A+ achievers.

Front left to right, Executive Director, Sunway College, Teo Ee Sing; Senior Executive Director, Sunway Education Group, Elizabeth Lee; ICAEW Executive Director, Learning & Professional Development, Mark Protherough and Head, ICAEW Malaysia Ms Loh Wei Yuen

The scholarship scheme is indeed another milestone in what is already a very strong working relationship between the world’s leading accountancy professional body and Malaysia’s largest education provider of professional accountancy programmes.

Sunway-TES and ICAEW have been providing the Certificate in Finance, Accounting and Business (CFAB) since May 2009. This innovative programme provides a fast-tracked approach for SPM/O Level school leavers to gain a world-renowned professional qualification and to become professionally qualified Chartered Accountants in 5 ½ years.

The CFAB takes 1.5 years to complete, while another year is spent on the ICAEW application module, and finally the ICAEW advanced stage which is done during the three years of a Training Contract with an ICAEW Authorized Training Employer (ATE). In the CFAB programme, students are given a 3-month Work Based Learning (WBL), where they are attached with the Authorised Training Employers (ATE) mainly the Big Five – BDO, Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC. During this time, the ATEs have the opportunity to evaluate and assess the CFAB students on their job performance and suitability before offering them a conditional Training Contract with the firms. After spending three months on the job, the students will then return to their classes.

After this, students have to complete the six subjects in the application modules of ICAEW's professional stage for another year. Thereafter, the students shall be sponsored by the big 5 firms to complete the Advanced stage of ICAEW, while they are concurrently employed at their particular ATE for the next three years. Paper qualification and work experience will qualify the student to graduate with the ACA, and become a Chartered Accountant at the age of 22 or 23.

The CFAB is in fact, the first of its kind in the world, and the first intake was in July 2009. These students are currently attached with the Big Five and other ATEs. Three batches of CFAB graduates have graduated and are highly regarded by the ATE's and known for being well rounded, sharp and grounded in technical knowledge.

CFAB students have performed exceptionally well in the ICAEW examination with exceptionally high pass rates. The average pass rate of Knowledge module is above 90% and Application module - above 80%. This excellent pass rate is attributed to the fact that CFAB students are mostly high achieving school leavers (SPM students with minimum of 5A's and above).

In July this year, 31 students passed the Case Study examination, bringing the total number of ICAEW graduates produced by Sunway to 128. Within the past three years, Sunway-TES has also produced six World Prize Winners for ICAEW professional stage examination papers. The high achieving students are indeed precious gems who are the result of their own hard work and also that of our Sunway-TES teaching staff.

It is out of the remarkable success of the CFAB that Sunway-TES and ICAEW have signed an agreement to collaborate to award a special scholarship scheme for CFAB. Through this scholarship, Sunway TES and ICAEW are able to provide a means for deserving students who have strong aspirations to become accountants.

Under the proposed scholarship scheme, Sunway will waive the tuition fees for CFAB and ICAEW application modules, while ICAEW’s sponsorship will be a waiver of registration fees, annual subscription fees and examination fees for CFAB and application modules. To date, a total of 16 ATE’s or partnering organisations, including the Big Five, have indicated their interest to participate in the scheme and each firm will be assigned with one Top SPM achiever. The ATEs will provide the scholar a 3-month WBL attachment, and subsequently sponsor the student to complete the Advanced Stage of the ICAEW programme. The targeted pioneer batch of inaugural scholars will commence in March 2013.