By HOMELAND MEDIA NEWSROOM
The Public Accountants Examinations Board (PAEB) of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Uganda (ICPAU) has noted with concern a decline in the performance of students in financial and management-related courses.
This has been attributed to poor question interpretation and analysis of questions in addition to poor preparation among accountancy students.
The remarks were made as PAEB released the results of the March 2022 Certified Public Accountants (CPA) examinations.
The examinations were conducted from 14 –18 March 2022, at the Kampala centre. There were 2,890 candidates.
The board noted the decline in performance for subjects such as Financial Management, Management Decision and Control, Advanced Financial Reporting and Public Sector Accounting and Reporting.
“The candidates need to improve their interpretation, computation, communication and analytical skills in levels 2 and 3 papers, and we call upon them to always endeavour to prepare for examinations, including doing practice/trial questions to sharpen their analytical skills,” Geoffrey Byamugisha, the PAEB chairman said.
The board however noted an improvement in the average pass rate, of 39.6% from 36.4% in March 2021. Females out performed the male candidates, with a pass rate of 53.7% compared to 46.3% for the males.
Additionally, out of 21 top candidates for the subjects, 11 were female, while 10 were male.
The President of ICPAU, Othieno Mayende emphasised that the ICPAU examinations continue to lead as a premium professional accountancy qualification in line with the international standards.
“We are very well rated as a professional accountancy organisation by the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), and with our qualification, our members are able to work anywhere in the world,” Mayende said.
The March 2022 examinations were introduced to enable students to recover lost time due to effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Other examinations will be done in June, September and December. Registration for June commences on 5 April until 22 May.
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