UCT STUDENTS have again distinguished themselves in the annual qualifying examinations of the Public Accountants and Auditors Board (PAAB) and the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA), held in November 2001.

The results, released in late February, indicated that five of the top 10 students who sat the PAAB's Public Practice Examination (PPE) were UCT commerce graduates. Gary Watt (second), Simon Minitzer (sixth), Anton Przybojewski (eighth), Susan McCready (ninth) and Lindsay Brotherton (tenth) shon among the 2113 candidates who wrote the exams.

In turn, Michael Kurland and Satish Bhala ended first and third respectively in the SAICA's Part II Examination in Financial Management. With just 56 candidates sitting for these tests, the SAICA named only the top three finishers.

In the run-up to the sittings, UCT's Department of Accounting joined forces with its counterpart at the Rand Afrikaans University (RAU) to design and produce a training programme for both the PAAB and the SAICA examinations. This kind of programme forms part of a set of requirements candidates must meet to qualify for the institutions' tests.

The joint venture, named Accounting Professional Training (APT), provided training for 1 447 of the PPE's candidates, including all the top ten students. In all, 982 were successful -- a pass rate of 68% as compared to the 44% achieved by other service providers. In addition, APT is the sole provider of training for the SAICA Part II in Financial Management exams. Of the 56 students who wrote this in 2001, 40 (72%) passed.

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