Wednesday, 24 September 2014 00:21
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One of the most sought after professional qualifications, CIMA has now been made more customer centric addressing both employers’ needs and what the youth of today require – flexibility.
Speaking on CIMA’s decision to increase the pass mark from 50 to 70 regional Director for Middle East South Asia and Noth Africa Bradley Emerson said, “It is not quite correct to conclude the pass marks have been increased because the examination is different. In paper based exams a student is expected to retain recall, format and reproduce an answer. It is a strenuous mental process and therefore a concession is given in reducing the pass marks. In our new examination we are not looking to test memory and the ability to reproduce what is recalled. We are testing the understanding and competency to respond to work life situation.
“Our testing actually offers the options to pick from therefore the students need not as much go through the process of recalling, formatting the answer rather ‘drag and drop’ from the options. Therefore an examiner need not give any concessions as given for the paper based exams, a method that will be obsolete soon.
“Besides we are testing for competency of our students to drive business. We need to make sure that our products (students) that go to the markets have at least 70% competence to support the business decisions. What we have done is in line with expectations of our consumers globally – the employers. When we did our reach with our consumers, i.e employers we were told that they need people who can ‘apply technical skill, in a context of business, influence business and lead the units they are in’. If we are relevant to market, then we are obsolete.
“Jobs in the future will be advertised based on competencies as experience will be irrelevant in a changing world of work. CVS in the future will have to be written focussing on competencies. To be relevant to what the market wants, we need to test competency. In the new economy knowing is inadequate, apply what you know is the differentiator. That’s what CIMA will teach and test from 2015. CIMA will provide the differentiators to our students and to those who hire them.”
Employers world wide endorsed the qualification and the new testing methodolgy stating that the scenario based testing will really help students to be work ready and give them an edge over others as they would possess wider scope of apprehension and understanding helping employers gain better economies of scale.
A recent independent bench mark report comparing the CIMA qualifications to the United Kingdom Qualification framework equates CIMA full qualification to a Masters degree in the UK. The UK qualification levels can be interpreted as a Level 7 – Postgraduate qualification (Postgraduate diploma, Masters and Doctoral degrees).
Past chairman of Commercial Bank Dinesh Weerakkody when asked if CIMA helped him overcome the challenges faced in his journey towards that success and thereafter said, “Today’s leaders must be able to leverage a broad range of styles given the complexity of organisations and their people. They must be highly flexible – adapting and improvising given changing strategies, shifting cultures, and the explosion of technology. CIMA provides a clear roadmap for the development of the required skills, competencies, attitudes and perspectives. Once qualified the CIMA CPD interventions ensure that leadership skills and competencies developed at one level are built upon at a higher level.” CIMA is seen today as a stand alone qualification and to many others who possess academic qualifications a great ‘add on’ helpiing individuals to work in a multitude of industries in diverse roles. CIMA the new generation professional business qualification is now affordable, flexible and easy to get through making students readily employable.
