Which qualification should you pursue?

Which qualification should you pursue?

Many students who I counselled in the past while teaching global F&A programs like ACCA, CIMA or IFRS had this obvious question in their minds – what is the scope of the course and how much salary I expect to receive post-completion of the course in India or abroad. Most of the above students did not have any job in their hands, and probably one such objective of them pursuing (or thinking of pursuing) a qualification was to get into a corporate quickly. The only answer I could give to those students or their parents is that I cannot guarantee anything which certainly they did not want to hear. As a result, many of them did not pursue the course or went to some other Institutes offering similar programs – where the facts were tweaked a bit here and there.

The other category of students who I catered to were those who already were working in an organization, but wanted to move outside or within the organization with an add-on to their profile – through a globally recognized qualification. Many a times, the organization also sponsored their qualification, thereby giving such students a comfort to jump into getting a qualification.

However, I experienced a common thing between the two categories – a bigger lot of students did not find it worthy to pursue the qualification for the sake of knowledge (a long-term approach), but for the sake of a job or pay-hike (short-term objective). Interestingly, many of the lot who carried a short-term objective, failed to clear the examination, at least in the first go or left the studies for good. For the second category, I could sympathize that studying along with current job is a daunting task in itself, especially the one who has been away from books for several years and suddenly hearing about a program sold well in the company.

As a partner of such Institution – I would not bother much either since the fee comes upfront, without any liability to the student passing the examination. Further, the examination appearing ratio was alarming –of the students who enrolled for such programs, only 15% or less actually gave the examination, as they lost the momentum soon after they had enrolled in any of the programs in global education. However, I sensed this too that if this is the case, the business is unlikely to scale any further since education is purely a word-of-mouth business. Only if there are successful cases with an Institution, it can fight the battle of survival, else is expected to see dirt sooner or later.

For such students, I have a piece of advice – do not be in a hurry to jump into a course otherwise you are certain to waste your hard-earned money, respect and time. For the institutions, the least that is expected is to ensure that the student is progressing, gaining knowledge and that he has full confidence that the Institution will support the student at all times – whether or not the student is writing the examination, or even failing it. That is the only manner that you can run the Institution in the long run.

Good luck for your career and do well!