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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

Race, technology, and maritime labour in the 19th century

2016-06-23

Prof John T. Grider

“When employers
impose
worker identity,
it creates problems.”

What does identity mean to people today, and how is it formed? Religion, politics, race, ethnicity, and gender make up individual and community identity. However, Prof John Grider (University of Wisconsin – La Crosse) is of the opinion that employment moulds our identity, since we spend so much time on the job.

Prof Grider joined the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice (IRSJ) on the Bloemfontein and Qwaqwa Campuses to discuss his research on the maritime industry, published in his book, Foreign Voyage - Pacific Maritime Labour Identity: 1840 to 1890. “When employers impose worker identity, it creates problems,” he said. Particularly, this “creates instability in communities, and a vulnerability and insecurity amongst the employees”.

To illustrate his point, Prof Grider expanded on the history of 19th-century Atlantic sailors, a highly-skilled workforce, who failed to adapt to changes in their labour environment. Initially, the sea-faring community was very diverse racially. However, as the Pacific, and particularly Asian, marine community gained precedence, this tide turned to such an extent that, in 1886, the Atlantic sailors formed their own Coastal Seamen’s Union in San Francisco, causing a split between Asian and non-Asian sailors. Atlantic sailors had failed to integrate with the new technology of the day (steam power), nor had they accepted the demographic changes that flooded their community rapidly with cheap labour from Chinese shores.

Prof Grider highlighted the need to maintain an adaptable mentality in the ever- and rapidly-changing labour world, since division amongst workers could lead only to further exploitation of the workforce.

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