AGSA celebrating its successful contribution to a transformative and professional accounting pipeline.
When the results of the 2021 Assessment of Professional Competence (APC) examinations were announced, the Auditor-General South Africa (AGSA) was thrilled to celebrate with their 309 candidates in their success.
The success of the APC candidates from AGSA improved significantly, with the pass rate increasing from 16% in 2020 to 57% in 2021. This was the third-highest number of successful candidates among all training organisations in the country.
Deputy Auditor-General Vonani Chauke reacted enthusiastically: ‘We are proud of these young people who, through agility, resilience and fortitude, completed this important test. We are particularly encouraged by the national pass rate for the SAICA APC exam, which increased to 72%, with the pass rate for African candidates increasing to 62%.’
Professionalising the accounting profession, and the public sector at large, is a key strategic pillar in AGSA. The accounting ecosystem hinges on the success of both the public and private sectors driving trust in resource management, whether it relates to the spending of public funds or capital investments from capital markets. The drive to shift the culture of how public resources are used through insights and influence where awareness is shifted to action is embedded in the new AGSA #cultureshift2030 strategy. Acquiring and developing the right quality and configuration of people is critical for achieving the sustainability required to realise this objective.
All accounting sector professionals should have strong acumen, which is defined as ‘the ability to judge well’. Such acumen is a necessary quality for professional accountants, enabling them to perform their work in the value-creation process. In essence, these professionals should be value creators for the public at large, including all spheres of the accounting ecosystem in both the public and private sectors. In light of this, we offer our trainees opportunities to develop technical and behavioural acumen through performing audit work on supply chain management and predetermined performance objectives, as well as through further secondment opportunities to the information systems and investigations spheres.
As a SAICA-accredited national audit office, AGSA is committed to growing the accounting professional pipeline. To do this, they have one of South Africa’s largest training programmes, which helps prepare their trainees for success in their qualifying examinations. They currently employ more than 1 000 aspiring chartered accountants.
The significant improvement in pass rates was achieved through a deliberate and tailored response plan created by identifying the root causes and challenges candidates experienced and then innovatively crafting unique support interventions in the training environment, supplementing the board preparation programmes, and partnering with industry experts to address the challenges identified.
The root cause analysis identified that candidates often prepare for this milestone examination as a once-off event rather than the attainment of a lifelong designation, with a false sense that preparation for a specific period is sufficient. The phrase #APCLifestyle was coined to describe a mindset shift initiative encompassing support initiatives introduced at the first-year level to begin the preparation for the APC.
#APCLifestyle challenges trainees to adopt a critical, independent and proactive mindset when applying themselves in the training environment. A holistic approach to addressing wellbeing in preparing for the examination is prioritised, supplemented with generous study leave to enable trainees to focus on their preparations.
The APC 2021 became a Team AGSA preparation and support project. Executives, leadership and everyone in the training environment were made aware of assessment dates and the requirements of the #APCLifestyle programme to ensure that the trainees had the support they needed to navigate the preparation period before the examination.
Since its inception, this programme has contributed nearly 2 000 chartered accountants to professionalise and transform the auditing profession.
AGSA’s audit trainees are exposed to a diverse field of audits ranging from banking to the education, health, aviation, infrastructure and energy sectors. The organisation’s integrated audit methodology has investigation, fraud and risk, as well as performance audit built into regularity audit to deliver on its mandate. This ensures that AGSA’s young professionals possess the integrated skills they need to become well-rounded professionals of the future and go on to build successful careers as newly qualified professionals retained in the organisation or within the public and private sectors.
The organisation has also established a pipeline that extends into socioeconomic development, where support is provided to learners who study mathematics and accounting at selected high schools, as well as to bursary schemes within the profession.
As an organisation, the AGSA remains unwavering in its continued efforts to ensure that its young professionals succeed and create a proficient lifestyle that will contribute not only to better APC pass rates but also, ultimately, to a progressive profession.
