I thought today would be a usual class but I didn't expect it to end with a depressing speech from Mr.Teo. In his speech, he highlighted a few potential threats to our future employment in the big four audit firms in Malaysia. The threats highlighted were as follows:
1. Placement of CFAB/ ICAEW interns in the big four audit firm
Apparently, most CFAB students in Sunway managed to secure an internship in audit firms during their studies and subsequently obtain a conditional employment letter upon the completion of their internships. This means that around 200 vacancies in such audit firms already been reserved in advance for those ICAEW students prior to their graduation and less vacancy will be available to ACCA students who wish to join audit firms after their graduation.
2. Collaboration of SunwayTES and University Malaya
In the upcoming 14th of May, SunwayTES, ACCA and UM will be signing a Memorandum of Agreement in such a way that UM accounting students can do their degree and ACCA concurrently. In short, they will have a university degree together with ACCA qualifications in 4 years' time. Hence, other ACCA students in Malaysia, especially private college students like me would be at a disadvantage since the graduates from UM would have their MIA membership immediately upon graduation. The big four audit firms will tend to favor such group of students in the foreseeable future.
Ironically, Mr.Teo actually agreed to such arrangement and voluntarily sending SunwayTES lecturers to teach those UM students! Frankly speaking, any sane man would not agree to such arrangement that will jeopardize the future of his own students including me!!
3. Collaboration of SunwayTES and USM
Yes, you are not reading wrongly. Another dumb collaboration. Currently, SunwayTES actually collaborates with USM in offering ICAEW qualifications to USM students. Again, SunwayTES will be sending its lecturers to USM to teach those students. This will create an over supply of accounting graduates in Malaysia and the competition among graduates to enter those audit firms will be intensified.
4. TalentCorp Malaysia
In my opinion, this will be the biggest challenge for all Malaysian ACCA students. Recently, TalentCorp held an event in London with the aim of bringing in Malaysian graduates in foreign universities. There were around 2000 students who attended the event. If all of them decided to return to Malaysia to seek employment, local ACCA students will certainly be in a disadvantaged position. Of course, foreign degrees from University of London, Manchester, Nortingham etc are certainly better than my current qualifications.=(
However, disregarding the fourth threat, the other three threats seemed ridiculous to me. Those problems were in fact created by Mr.Teo himself and yet he was telling us to study hard to remain competitive. Obviously he was talking nonsense as all the three threats will not occur if he don't do anything in the first place! Worst still, he then forced those weaker students to defer their current papers in order to maintain the platinum status of SunwayTES.
It was so frustrating to see such thing actually happens in college. The main purpose of a higher learning institution is supposed to nurture future generations with appropriate skills and imparting knowledge to students. It is certainly not to deny the liberty of a student to sit for exam. All the above spoilt my mood of the day and forced me to blog out all my frustrations. Oh, i think this is my first post in 2012 by the way. Ahh, maybe I should just enter a commercial firm to work rather than stressing myself to compete in an audit firm...
