ACCA holds its second consecutive learning provider forum

ACCA held its Learning Provider Forum for 2013 on 27 March, 2013 at the Ivy room, Cinnamon Grand, where Approved Learning Partners from all over the country participated; which included Mercury Institute of Management, FTMS, CCBT, KBBS and Neptune Edification. The forum was an excellent opportunity for these tuition providers to meet, discuss and get further information on the direction in which exam papers are heading.  

Held with the aim of strengthening links between ACCA and its quality tuition providers and allowing best practice to be shared with access to a range of promotional opportunities, representatives from these institutes got the chance to network with each other, with the ACCA staff and with other relevant representatives of ACCA, such as Kaplan.

The keynote speaker was Andrew Bradley who is a qualified accountant and has worked as a lecturer at Kaplan for over 15 years, prior to which he was an auditor for Price Waterhouse. He also specializes in teaching auditing and business strategy across ACCA and has taught several prize winners. In addition he has held several management positions within Kaplan and is currently a director of the Kaplan Tutor Academy which creates and provides all training and development to Kaplan’s academic staff. Outside of teaching he has been a marker for paper F8 and its predecessor for eight years.

Another facilitator at the forum was Dr. Afra Sajad, who is ACCA’s regional head of education for MENASA (Middle East North Africa South Asia). In this role, her main focus has been to drive professional accounting education excellence through engaging stakeholders on best practices of student support; and exploring excellence in tuition support and continuous professional development. She has worked on a number of policy projects and consultative responses relating to narrative reporting, financial reporting, auditing and corporate governance and is also on the editorial boards of ACCA magazines Teach Accounting and Accountancy Futures.

The forum consisted of sessions that covered important subject areas for learning providers such as, effective delivery and course design, learning styles, student engagement, worked examples and assessments, best practices for teaching and assessment methodologies and teaching techniques. They also gained insight into examiner feedback on student exam performance, tips and approaches to the ACCA examinations, discussed challenges and  solutions to help improve exam performance and motivating students, teaching techniques and examiner tips of different papers, exploring opportunities and learn more  about  ACCA resources and future plans.

In addition, there were specialist sessions at the forum which also covered an update on developments at ACCA and received expert advice and support on teaching certain challenging subjects and information on resources to help support students.

The forum concluded with a panel debate focusing on the theme of ‘Joining the dots and enhancing employability’ which was moderated by the Business Relationship Manager–Learning, ACCA Sri Lanka, Dilani Perera. The panelists included, Regional Head of Education - MENASA, for ACCA, Dr. Afra Sajjad; Head of ACCA Sri Lanka, Nilusha Ranasinghe; CEO, Mercury Institute of Management, Jeevith Shakespeare; CEO of Brandix Mercury Asia (Pvt) Ltd, Viren Perera; and Head of the Accounting Department, University of Sri Jayewardanapura, Prof. Samanthi Senaratne.

The panel debated on its main theme which was the manner in which ACCA’s approved learning providers and it’s approved employers could work together to nurture and create the much needed professional accountants that are assets to businesses and much needed for the economic growth of the country at large.  

Commenting on the conference , The Head for ACCA Sri Lanka Nilusha Ranasinghe said:  “ACCA has organized this forum as a part of their continued efforts to develop excellence in professional accounting education and establish best practices amongst ACCA’s education providers. We are confident it will be a common platform for ACCA tuition providers to discuss the existing and emerging teaching practices that nurture talent and are aligned to industry’s business models. The learning provider conference is a part of ACCA’s initiatives to ensure that their learning providers adhere to the highest standards to provide students with the best possible chance of success”