CA student and the Deathly Hallows

One of the fascinating profession profession in India is Chartered Accountancy. Its much sought after by students of commerce stream.  CA course is designed into three stages. Each stage has its own difficulty. And there is this internship (articleship in CA terminology) to be completed which is for 42 months. A Intermediate qualified person has to work under a practising CA to be eligible to appear for Final exam. Working under CA shapes students to face hardships and to know more about life. There are many drawbacks in such training system. The post only tries to explain the kind of difficulties faced by  CA students (like me) and an eye opener for aspiring CAs.

1. The stage at which student should go for articleship is modified by ICAI many times. Earlier training is after completing intermediate, then after completing foundation(CPT) itself. Now its back to old times, after finishing Group-I of intermediate. Such structural modifications affects the confidence of the students. The institute  should first be clear on its stand on when to train students. Lack of proper vision is major drawback.
2.Recently graduates have been given exemption from appearing for foundation(CPT). A good move to encourage more people to join. But a big blow for those who cleared CPT and pursuing Inter. I have seen many people clearing CPT after six or seven attempts. After such hard passage, they enter into intermediate level. Now that exemption is given, students feel that their struggle to clear CPT is short lived and has no value now. A friend of mine who quit CA after many failures in CPT has now enrolled to Inter under this exemption while I cleared CPT after many attempts.
3. Articleship training is a great fun but a stressful job. ICAI prescribes 35 hours of working per week. But practically students work for more than 50 hours a week. They have to report to office at 9 or 10 and can leave at 7 or 8. Of course certain offices strictly follow rules. But widely rules are overridden. Its like 3.5 years you have to sweat it out whether u like it or not.
4. Audits are freaking. Where there are audits out of city, students should get ready early and have to catch vehicles of employees at early morning.  Pick up time is before 6.30. Vehicle reaches factory at 8. Those people in factory work from 8 to 5 and so its obvious for students to work with them. Imagine a student undergoing training working for  9 hours a day and literally struck up in audit for 13 hours a day. After doing all this, the student has to prepare for further exams. No other professional course in India is so much challenging.
5. Auditing, in layman terms, is verifying accounts of concern. Auditor is not supposed to modify books of account of the concern.  But in 95% cases students tend to do accounting and auditing. They tend to do changes to accounts when its not in conformity to accounting principles. Not only this they help in filing various statutory returns, which is the duty of the company. The articleship training guidelines mention the scope of training students. But students are doing a hell more of a job than they are supposed to do.
6. The other ugly thing is liasoning govt. offices for registrations like central excise, income tax, sales tax etc. Here one becomes true Indian citizen. Student represent client before authorities and learn how to give bribe. You have to give bribe secretely but before that technically jnow how much bribe is expected by the officer.  Its part of articleship training. A bad precedent on the part of professionals to indulge students in such things. India shining!!!!!
7. At cases during audits, students come across employees of the organization. They are loveable idiots. They know nothing about accounts. Just because there is a position they are recruited. Most of their jobs is done by the student.
8. During internal audits students tend to work with recently qualified CAs who are statutory auditors. While interacting with them during audits, sometimes it is wondered how cum this person completed CA final. They ask silly silly questions during audits. There is one Mr.A who has four Inter attempts to his record and anodr Mr. B who has completed all three stages in first attempt. But practically A tends to outshine B considering his level of working knowledge and learning skills. This is highly inequity. This is what ICAI has done to the nation. Not those with skills and knowledge become CAs but people with knowledge and luck become CAs. There was once a dream which was CA, this is not it.
9. And ICAI by its legislation has the right to modify the result of a candidate considering the overall pass percentage. If pass level is considered high, students who score some ten to twenty marks higher than required become prey and their results are altered that they fail in exams. Seriously dont know how such a system is followed in India by ICAI. The govt. does not interfere in it unless it is strongly raised by public.

These are the various difficulties in CA course. One should think wise before taking CA. He should sacrifice happiness, freedom, rest, sleep, peace and should not at all expect nice warming treatment. Articleship is an agreement between student and CA, an unbreakable vow.  Life for CA student is "agreemented labour".  But once they clear CA having overcome all such hardships, they feel the worst is gone and they can overcome any hard situations in life....

For all those "Agreemented labours", May god bless you and save you!!!!!!