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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

Faculty of Law establishes unique panel of advisors

2005-11-11

Photo: Stephen Collett

Some of the panel members who attended the Collegium Iurisprudentium of the Faculty of Law at the UFS were from the left His Honorable Judge of Appeal Lex Mpati (Vice-President of the Supreme Court of Appeal), His Honorable Judge of Appeal Joos Hefer (former Chief Justice of South Africa), His Honorable Judge of Appeal Frits Brand (Supreme Court of Appeal) and Mrs Alet Ellis (lecturer at the UFS Faculty of Law).

At the back from left were Prof Johan Henning (Dean: Faculty of Law at the UFS), His Honorable Judge Faan Hancke (High Court of the Free State and chairperson of the UFS Council) and Adv Jannie Lubbe Sc.

The Faculty of Law at the University of the Free State (UFS) has established a panel of advisors comprising of all the honorary and extraordinary professors of the faculty.

“The faculty has been known for its excellent practice-orientated training as well as the involvement of law practitioners in the training of LL B-students,” said Prof Johan Henning, Dean of the Faculty of Law at the UFS.

“The faculty was greatly dependent on the services of advocate lecturers, full-time members of the Bar and Side Bar who lectured on a part-time basis at the faculty. For this reason lecturing in the faculty was mainly done after-hours to part-time students,” said Prof Henning.

With the shift in emphasis to full-time lecturing and the appointment of full-time lecturers, especially because of the increasing student numbers, the full-time LL B-programme and the increasing pressure on students for quality research inputs, a greater need for meaningful contributions of judges and senior law practitioners to the faculty was experienced.

“To comply with this urgent need, three honorary professors and nine extraordinary professors were appointed. This group of experts deliver an indispensable contribution to the practice orientation of the faculty by means of formal lectures, public inaugural lectures and guest lectures, direct lectures to graduate and post-graduate students, participation in research projects and the constant evaluation of lecturers, modules and the content of modules and learning material. The international exposure of students and lecturers is also promoted by their contribution,” said Prof Henning.
“A need to have the involvement of this special class of professors structured in a more organised way was identified and a decision was made to establish an advisory panel called Collegium Iurisprudentium. It is a privilege to us that all the honorary and extraordinary professors accepted the invitation,” said Prof Henning.

The panel will provide the faculty with continuous, distinguished, practice- orientated capability and capacity as well as international expertise, not only for direct inputs to students but also to advise lecturers about the curriculum, the compilation of the content of the LL B and M module, learning material and others, as well as to strengthen the research capacity of the faculty.

“The panel will also deliver a decisive contribution to the faculty’s preparation for the constitutional audit of the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC) of the Council for Higher Education (CHE) that will take place in October 2006,” said Prof Henning.

The Collegium Iurisprudentium, which has been formally constituted, comprises of:

Appeal Court Judge J J F Hefer,
Appeal Court Judge L Mpati
Appeal Court Judge F D J Brand
Appeal Court Judge I G Farlam
Prof B A K Rider
Judge S P B Hancke
Judge A Kruger
Judge D H van Zyl
Adv S J Naudé
Adv J Lubbe Sc
Prof M M Katz
Prof R J Cook
Mr S van de Merwe
Mr W van der Westhuizen
Mr D C M Gihwala

Media release
Issued by:Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel: (051) 401-2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
11 November 2005

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