| INDIAN students wishing to pursue chartered accountancy under the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India could soon undertake their training in Doha, which otherwise had to be done in India.
The Doha chapter of the ICAI will soon embark on an awareness drive within schools to help students as well as their parents about the scope and opportunities in the accountancy career.
In an interview to Gulf Times, Kurian Kuriakose, the newly elected president of the ICAI Doha chapter, confirmed that the chartered accountants apex body has already allowed overseas students to undertake the three-and-a-half years training (which includes theory as well as articleship) in their respective countries of stay.
Previously, these students, especially girls, had to travel all the way to India for undertaking the course, leaving behind their parents here, a phenomenon that created hurdles and involved huge costs for them.
To help those students wishing to undertake CA as their profession, a Qatar Financial Centre-registered chartered accountant firm Morrison Menon, with which Kuriakose is a managing partner, is taking the lead in facilitating their training as it plans to open an office in India in the next two to three months.
According to the regulations of the ICAI, a body incorporated as per the act of Indian Parliament, students can undertake training outside India only if the firm in which they are to undergo training has a professional address back in India.
For students to obtain chartered accountancy certification from the ICAI, they have to undergo training under a chartered accountant or firm that is full time into the profession and certified by the ICAI.
Although many global accounting firms have operations in Qatar, there were only a few partners who are members of the ICAI and in many cases, the membership were not kept alive, it is learnt.
With career selection assuming ever increasing importance these days, the ICAI has already put in place a common proficiency test (CPT) for those students who have completed 10th standard (but they will be able to take up the exam only after completing 12th).
Although at present the proficiency test is paper-based in India, Kuriakose said he would take up with the ICAI, which is headquartered in New Delhi, regarding making it online so that many overseas Indian students could appear for it.
During February-April, as many as 1,400 students, who qualified as chartered accountants, were offered placement through campus recruitment, which was conducted through videoconferencing across 18 centres in India.
The highest salary offered was Rs1.6mn per annum and average annual salary amounted to Rs0.6mn, according to Kuriakose.
He urged the companies in Qatar to register with the ICAI regarding campus recruitment as it would not only considerably save their costs for headhunting but also offered wider choice of quality candidates.
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