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Accounting in Nepal: How to develop a talent pool to curb human resource shortage?

We all know importance of skilled human resource for imparting quality service. Nepal has seen lot of changes in the past decade with the establishment of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nepal (ICAN). It has been able to produce finest professionals trained in Nepalese business environment although other professional bodies like ICAI and ACCA were also contributing even before ICAN.  Members from these professional institutes have to go through rigorous syllabus and practical training making them high level professionals. They mostly get absorbed into corporate as managers.  Demand for these professionals is still high in the market.  I am, personally, not worried about Chartered Accountants (CA) or similar high level professionals but more about mid and entry level accountants.

These days, semi-qualified CA, have been major player as mid-level accountants along with Accounting Technicians (AT). Semi Qualified CA are professionals who have completed practical training requirement but still have few papers left for being CA while AT is separate professional course launched by ICAN realising huge demand for these mid-level accountants. However, this is not sustainable to fill mid-level accountant gaps as semi-qualified CA’s are individuals with skills sets equivalent to Chartered Accountants merely waiting for the certificate. And, AT’s also go through rigorous curriculum and have certificate of practice for auditing. What does this mean to accounting industry and its demand for entry & mid-level accountants? 

Answer is straight forward, gap still exists. Second question that should come to mind by now is, how is it working then? Is it by God’s Grace of “Bhagwan Pashupatinath”.  Answer is graduates (both bachelors and Masters). Is this worrying? Ideally, we should not be. Accounting Graduates are major workforce when it comes to accounting all over the world.  So, why am I saying there is still gap in Nepal? One and only reason is non-availability of accounting specialisation in undergraduate and graduate course in Nepalese university. Most of the students are specialised in Finance. By finance, they are equipped in funds management but not on how to record the transactions so that historical records are accurate.  These students do not have any practical exposure at all. They undergo internship but these are focused on the funds management and less on accounting.

My proposal is thus, to have a separate university degree specialising in accounting. ICAN, being regulatory body working towards develop of accounting profession in Nepal, should take a lead. ICAN should work with universities introducing accounting specialisation in both graduate and undergraduate course. These courses should cover at least foundation and intermediate courses making these graduates eligible for enrolment for Chartered Accountant Final course offered by ICAN. ICAN, should further work with its members to establish internship program for these students to acquire at least six months internship program in undergraduate level and another 2 year during graduate level. This, way, students will have enough practical exposure to take on the challenge day after graduation even if they do not purse CA Final course.

Curriculum should be designed in the way students are able to acquire comprehensive knowledge on how different function within entity work and are integrated so students have clarity on the source of accounting information that gets recorded and ultimately, financial statements are produced. This way, they would also understand the importance of supporting documents that explains each of these transactions.

Additionally, these students should also be introduced to different forms and formats for Income Tax, VAT and other taxes.  My experience has shown that students know how to calculate tax theoretically but when it comes to real deal they can't do anything.

This is my personal opinion on what is need to foster accounting in Nepal. Invest in building the human resource and you will not regret. This has to be systematic and through intervention in the current education system. Private sector and Universities with short term courses might help to increase the capacity but to build the strong foundation, ICAN and Universities needs to work together.

One can always differ from my view but I hope this article will help start some healthy discussion.

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