New Curriculum for CA Course likely to be rollout in July; New Syllabus includes AI and Blockchain: ICAI President

The Institute of Chartered Accountancy of India (ICAI) is likely to launch the New Chartered Accountancy Curriculum for CA Foundation, CA Intermediate and CA Final Programmes in July this year.

Aniket Talati, president of ICAI, stated at a press conference that the curriculum will be launched in July, which also happens to be the institute’s 75th anniversary. CA students will be able to become “global professionals” as the outcome of the curriculum.

According to Talati, the curriculum has been realigned with the National Education Policy 2020, which includes transdisciplinary education as well as credit accumulation and transfer through mutual recognition agreements (MCRA) with educational institutions. A student can take one or two papers to get credits and qualifications.

“In accordance with the NEP 2020, the new curriculum will include subjects such as Indian constitution, philosophy, and psychology. We will assess pupils on diverse areas because we do not want rote learning but rather strong practical application based learning. The credit transfer will be enabled through MCRAs, which will allow a student to appear for one or two papers to obtain credits and qualification,” Talati explained.

In addition, the ICAI has created self-paced online modules, allowing working students to learn and qualify at their own leisure. There are currently around 7.5 lakh CA students enrolled with the ICAI.

CA Syllabus and Technology

The CA curriculum has also emphasised technology. Talati elaborated on the incorporation of technology into curriculum, saying, “The institute has begun training registered members on disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and data science. It will also play an important role in our new curriculum. Technology will now be included in all articles.”

Talati also stressed that the proposed curriculum places a greater emphasis on skill-based learning, ensuring that commerce graduates have the necessary competencies.

The ICAI also intends to introduce a “New Scheme for Education and Training” that will focus on the development of higher-order abilities such as application, analysis, and interpretation. The mandatory multi-disciplinary case study at the final level would be a unique element of the new plan, allowing students to integrate professional knowledge in several subject areas, analyse, and use such information in problem-solving.

Regarding the proposed Education and Training Scheme, vice-president Ranjeet Agarwal stated, “Expert Groups were formed for the formulation of syllabi, and their suggestions were considered by the Board formed by the ICAI Council. After the syllabi were approved, they were sent to MCA for approval.”

Collaboration of ICAI with IITs and IIMs

Beyond chartered accountancy, the ICAI has established connections with 111 higher education institutions. To work with universities, the school hosted the first National Education Summit for Commerce and Accountancy (NESCA) in January. For the summit, ICAI collaborated with the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE).

“The ICAI is well-known throughout the world for its commerce and chartered accountancy courses. We realised that accounting should not be limited to chartered accountants, but should be made available to schools and institutions as well. We encouraged educators, deans, and leaders of institutions and colleges to work with us. We have devised a model for the types of subjects that should be taught in business. We have signed an agreement with 111 universities,” Talati stated.

The institute has struck agreements with seven Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) and two Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) among the 111 higher education institutions that recognise the CA qualification for admission to the PhD programme. The ICAI also intends to expand commerce and accounting courses to be taught in schools.

“In the future, we will incorporate this into the Class 11 and 12 school curriculum. Accounting, taxation, and other business-related subjects are being studied. We have sent the new course curriculum to the ministry for approval, and once it is approved, more students will be interested in chartered accounting,” Talati explained.

CA Articleship

The ICAI has also reduced the articleship time from three years to two years. CA Articleship is a practical training programme required after completing an academic degree to become a chartered accountant.

“We thought, why not have a two-year articleship period where there are no requirements for communication skills courses or IIT courses and the student does not take the final examination during those two years. After completing the articleship, students will have ample time to prepare for the final examination, which can only be taken after six months,” Talati explained.

According to the proposed scheme, a CA candidate will only get 12 days of leave each year. Currently, ICAI offers 156 days of leave over the three-year CA articleship period, with a maximum of 180 days allowed.

CA Students belongs to Northeast, Jammu and Kashmir

To broaden its reach, the ICAI announced a 75 percent reduction in registration course fee for all levels of CA courses for students registering from the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, and the eight North-East states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, and Andaman and Nicobar Islands until March 31, 2025.

“Because of the concession we are providing, we are seeing good growth in the northeast and students in the Leh-Ladakh region. We have also begun job advice for students in Leh Ladakh and India’s North Eastern provinces. We have found that chartered accountancy has had relatively little penetration. The fee reduction and the career counselling initiative have helped us gain traction for the course,” Talati added.