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Kovsie alumna secures spot on SAICA Honours Roll

25 February 2020 | Story Valentino Ndaba

Kovsies is proud of Charné Ferreira one of just 12 candidates to be placed on the Honours Roll of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants.

The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) recently announced the candidates who wrote and successfully met the requirements of the Assessment of Professional Competence (APC) examination. One of 2 024 names released was that of Charné Ferreira, a University of the Free State (UFS) alumna.

Ferreira was among 3 560 candidates who attempted the APC in November 2019. This gruelling part of her journey to becoming a Chartered Accountant (CA) was a culmination of many years of intensive education and training.

Now a Senior Associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ferreira reflects on how her career started with the decision to take Accounting as a subject in high school. In her second- and third-year as a Kovsie student, Ferreira challenged herself to become a tutor. This gave her the opportunity to secure a position as an Academic Trainee at the UFS School of Accountancy.

Recognising outstanding performance
Not only did Ferreira pass the most demanding Chartered Accounting test in South Africa, but she excelled and earned a place on the institute’s prestigious APC Honours Roll. SAICA honours only 12 exceptional candidates for their aptitude and skill.

Excellence to match market demands
According to Freeman Nomvalo, CEO of SAICA: “In many ways this is the toughest exam because it requires aspirant Chartered Accountants (CASA) to apply their technical academic knowledge from multiple disciplines to a single but complex real-life business case study. To pass, candidates must demonstrate high levels of the skills employers have told us they want in the next generation of CAs (SA).

“Succeeding at this final test of professional competence requires advanced levels of critical thinking, the ability to work with technology, and the capacity to assimilate new information under pressure over a five-day period which culminates in an eight-hour assessment. It’s gruelling but it’s exactly the kind of challenge successful candidates will soon face as qualified CAs (SA),” added Nomvalo.

A word to the wise
Looking back at the building blocks that led her to this point, Ferreira shared invaluable advice for future candidates. “Ask for help, speak up if you do not know, speak up if you are drowning in stress. Your career is not a sprint, it is okay if you fail, as long as you get up again and the most important thing is, make time to rest, do not be so hard on yourself,” she said.

In congratulating Ferreira and the other UFS alumni who passed the 2019 Assessment of Professional Competence, Prof Frans Prinsloo, Director: School of Accountancy, also paid tribute to the excellent work of the UFS academics in the School who play a vital role in developing the knowledge, skills and values of the next generation of accounting professionals. “These results attest to the quality of the Chartered Accountancy education offered by the UFS,” he said.

News Archive

IRSJ Research fellow embarks on historic ‘voyage’

2017-12-11

Prof John T Grider, making the maritime past alive again in the minds
of a new generation.
Photo: Eugene Seegers

Prof John Grider, Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in the USA and a Research Fellow in the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice (IRSJ) at the University of the Free State (UFS), has launched a book based on more than a decade of research into the Pacific maritime labour identity. His monograph, entitled A Foreign Voyage—Pacific Labour Identity, 1840-1890, delves into the history of the maritime industry, not only as a vehicle for expanding the processes of capitalism, colonialism, industrialisation, and globalisation, but is also exploring the impact of this industry on the shifts in gender, race, class, and technology.

As a student in Colorado, a homesick Grider tried to connect with his coastal roots via research. “Before I started to explore the maritime history, I thought of the ocean as a type of boundary that you sometimes need to cross. The truth is that globalisation happens on ships.” Prof Grider’s passion for Pacific maritime labour identity generates colourful discussions on the topic. Masculine sailors confronted by technological de-skilling that corroded away their identity, come to life as he talks and writes. “I try to show students that history is more than a story about the powerful few, and that everyday people, who may seem powerless, play a major role in shaping the past and the future.”

This monograph is based on first-hand, previously unpublished accounts of daily life at sea, often from ships’ logs and the diaries kept by the men who sailed them. The culmination of much painstaking research and supporting evidence, this book investigates the complex interplay between gender, class, and race sourced from the narratives of men who found themselves working in the transforming Pacific maritime industry during the mid-nineteenth century. A powerful lesson to be learnt from this fascinating segment of maritime labour history, is adaptability, “especially in today’s rapidly changing labour world”, Prof Grider says.

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