The ceremony was officiated by Datuk Prof. Dr. Roziah Omar, Deputy Director General (IPTS), Higher Education Department, Ministry of Education, on behalf of YB Dato’ Seri Idris Jusoh, Minister of Education II. This makes Sunway TES, the only CAE thus far within the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP).
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| Launch of the Sunway TES Centre of Accountancy Excellence – (From left) Lee Weng Keng, Tengku Nurul Azian Tengku Shahriman, Teo Ee Sing and Datuk Prof Dr Roziah Omar. |
This CAE is a multilevel collaborative initiative between Sunway TES, professional accounting bodies such as the ACCA, ICAEW, and MICPA, international and local professional accounting firms as well as public institutions of higher education and large corporations.
The CAE was established to promote excellence in accounting training in Malaysia and there on take the lead in the Asia Pacific region. This collaboration is the first public-private partnership of its kind with specific focus in accountancy and financial programmes, supporting the government’s aim of establishing Malaysia as an education hub by providing the needed skilled talent to achieve the goals of ETP and the larger aims of Vision 2020.
Sunway TES is expected to train about 600 to 700 students each year to achieve the target of 5,500 graduates within seven years from 2014 to help meet ETP’s target. To achieve this, Sunway TES will soon set up another five regional CAEs, one each in the north, south, east coast, and in Sabah and Sarawak. The CAEs will offer international renowned professional accounting programmes with three key objectives – talent upgrade and development, enhancing public and private partnership, and human capital development.
The regional CAEs are to help elevate collaboration between Sunway TES and the respective partners and to incorporate professional accounting qualifications into the existing accounting degree programmes. Other aims of the planned collaborations include developing academicians through knowledge exchange between lecturers from partner institutions.
These centres will help position Malaysia as a major education destination of choice and be the pivotal hub in the global education network. With this plan, the Government requires private education institutions to improve and ensure that the quality of education offered is of the highest standard, on par with or even better than institutions abroad. Malaysia will then be able to develop and produce quality talent, which can be retained.
The minister’s speech read by Dr. Roziah said that he is happy to note that Sunway TES has taken a crucial step in the right direction in having a structured plan to develop and to increase the capacity of the number of professionally qualified accountants for Malaysia.
“Sunway TES’ plans involve raising the awareness and creating the interest to take on the career as qualified accountants. It also aims to increase the opportunities for access to professional accounting education and improving the passing rates of the examinations. Another important feature is collaboration with industry and commerce to develop a clear route of entry into their companies from school to work with an accounting qualification,” said the minister.
He added that Sunway TES Centre for Accountancy Excellence is not only a centre for developing students but also a centre for developing experts who are competent in shaping future professional accountants. With a strong track record of academic excellence and experience in training lecturers, Sunway TES can work closely with institutions in the region to develop their teams of professional accountancy lecturers.
In his speech, Lee Weng Keng, Chief Executive Officer, Education and Healthcare Division of Sunway Group, said, “We are excited about expanding our support structure by positioning satellite centres of excellence similar to our Centre of Accountancy Excellence (or CAE) here in Sunway, so as to reduce travel time for the students and participants. This effectively brings professional accounting and other financial qualifications closer to the people, allowing those outside the Klang Valley to study without having to commute extensively.”
Michael Izza, Chief Executive of ICAEW said, “The growing economies of South East Asia need finance professionals with the highest standard of training. We commend the Malaysian authorities for investing in the training of accountancy professionals for the region. Sunway TES has an outstanding record in developing talent, producing many global prize winners. ICAEW is pleased to be part of this important initiative which will help strengthen the profession and drive prosperity.”
Among those present at the launch were Teo Ee Sing, Executive Director of Sunway TES and Sunway College; Tengku Nurul Azian Tengku Shahriman, Director, Education and SRI Human Capital Development of PEMANDU; Dato’ Gan Ah Tee, Regional Senior for ASEAN and Managing Partner of BDO; Nizar Najib, Executive Director, Financial Advisory Services (FAS) of Deloitte; Ng Eng Kiat, Managing Partner of Folks DFK & Co. Azman, Wong, Salleh & Co.; Megat Iskandar Shah Mohamad Nor, Partner at Ernst & Young; Dato’ Narendra Jasani, Managing Partner of Grant Thornton; Mohamed Raslan Abdul Rahman, Managing Partner of KPMG; Pauline Ho, Assurance Leader of PricewaterhouseCoopers; Teh Cheng Hock, Vice President (Corporate Affairs) of Genting Malaysia Berhad; Chong Chang Choong, Group Chief Financial Officer of Sunway Berhad; Associate Professor Dr Che Ruhana Isa, Dean, Faculty of Business and Accountancy, University Malaya; May Law, Director Asia Pacific, ACCA; Dato’ Abdul Halim Mohyiddin, Council Member and Past President of MICPA and Datin S.K. Yap, Chief Operating Officer of MIA.
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