Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

UFS students attain a 94.7% pass rate in challenging SAICA exam

23 August 2019 | Story Valentino Ndaba

UFS Accountancy students — The UFS School of Accountancy is fast becoming one of the best in the country.

Becoming a Chartered Accountant (SA) entails successfully completing the rigorous education and training requirements set by the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA). As part of these requirements, all prospective CAs are required to write SAICA’s challenging Initial Test of Competence (ITC). A total of 83 graduates from the University of the Free State (UFS) passed the 2019 ITC examinations, making the Kovsie community and School of Accountancy proud.

Prof Frans Prinsloo, the Director at the UFS School of Accountancy, applauded the successful graduates – of whom 39 are African, five coloured, one Indian, and 38 white. “More than 55% of our graduates who wrote the exam are black (African, coloured and Indian), demonstrating that our emphasis on building the pipeline of under-represented prospective Chartered Accountants (SA) is paying off in terms of both racial and gender inclusion.”

Rising above the ultimate test
SAICA released the results of the June 2019 ITC examination on Friday 16 August 2019. The ITC examination is the first of two professional examinations required for qualification as a Chartered Accountant (SA), and is written shortly after completion of formal university studies. There are two sittings of this examination annually, in January and June.

Compared to the national average pass rate of 75.4% for the 2019 ITC examinations, UFS BAcc Honours and Postgraduate Diploma in Chartered Accountancy graduates delivered a superior performance. The 94.7% pass show that our graduates are a force to be reckoned with.

Upping standards
More than 10 of the Thuthuka Bursary Programme graduates of 2018 who wrote the 2019 ITC examinations, passed, which translates into a 92% pass for this group. Such an achievement also confirms the success of the bursary programme ‘wraparound support’ interventions, by delivering results well in excess of the national average. These interventions also extend to the development of professional skills essential for the corporate world – thereby ensuring that these graduates are not only technically strong, but ‘work-ready’.

Best in the business of excellence
“These results place the UFS School of Accountancy amongst the best in the country in terms of Chartered Accountancy education, and is testament to the hard work of the academic staff and the quality of our CA programme,” says Prof Prinsloo.

News Archive

"Participation without insight leads to pronouncements without prospects"

2004-08-30

Taking the poor off the streets and encouraging their participation in the planning process is not always empowering them but it might be robbing them of their power, said Prof Das Steyn, of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of the Free State (UFS).

Speaking on public participation in the planning process during his inaugural lecture, Prof Steyn said this meant that people in the streets sometimes have more power than people in the system.

“Public participation is an overgeneralization that is often defined as providing citizens with opportunities to take part in governmental decisions and planning processes. But there must be a balance between power and responsibility,” he said.

According to Prof. Steyn, public participation in town planning plays a vital role and can be both deliberation and participation.

After 1994 there was a widespread insistence on democracy, and legislation passed since then was based on the belief that the community must be involved in the planning process.

He said the experience of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the UFS was that in some cases people showed lack of interest in public participation.

He believed that the aim of public participation is to improve the effectiveness of planning and that public participation democratises project planning.

“Public participation can help us know how the public feels about certain issues. It has the potential of resolving a conflict, but this is not guaranteed,” Prof Steyn said.

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept