(No personal offending intended), but I just couldn't understand whether it is inevitable or just a matter of time for a few qualified members to speak ill of the prosperity the membership base of the Institute is enjoying.. What amuses me even more is the fact that the same members used to come scathingly at the Institute when the pass percentages used to be quite low or the same were so "manipulated". And when the pass percentages are good (its good only in the context of CA, in general parlance it is still quite low), Institute gets the same treatment in terms of response to the pass percentages. Having said that, Mr. Ayush is among the senior and the pragmatic members of the club and advocating the controlling of results or ruing (as it appeared) that the same is not happening is just not expected of him.
If the pass percentages are on a upside, its not because that the ICAI has started to offer freebies and they are awarding student two mark instead of one or is so "not manipulating" the results. Rather, it is because of the fact that the students have improvised significantly, they have more resources at their disposal, they are more clinical in their preparations and they are continuously evolving more methodical in the manner they appear for the exams and presenting their answers. And what it has done is that it has reduced the incentive for the examiner to cut marks citing "unprofessional answers and presentation" and therefore resulting in more marks being awarded. And I strongly feel that in the coming years, we will witness even higher pass percentages. But of course, few grey areas remain as highlighted earlier, like the competence of the persons evaluating the answer sheets and the students skipping articleship to cram and get thru the qualifying margin (exceptions do prevail).
It has quite become a norm citing "Supply being more than Demand" as a reason for the unemployment or underemployment of CAs. Somewhere in 2011, I read that there is shortage of around 2,00,000 CAs in the country. And since then, I don't think more than 25,000 CAs have qualified. So, by that standard, still CAs are in short supply. Campus placements are making new lows every time, but would it be fair to say that the demand is lesser then supply? Companies incur about half million (I may be wrong) towards participation fees in Campus Placements, but are the companies so foolish to incur such heavy expenses to hire only 8-10 of the 100 candidates. If they really didn't had the need for CAs, then they would have easily hired them from off campus, why is the need to pay such heavy entrance fees to recruit candidates. Doesn't it somewhere highlights the issue of Skill Deficiency? Doesn't it somewhere shows that the members are not able to justify themselves to the realms of the corporate world? Isn't the weakening economy and global prospects one of the reasons for the lack of opportunities available? Quite clearly, there are a lot of factors that we tend to overshadow under the "Demand-Supply Theory". And why we talk of salary as the first criterion of evaluating how good the job or the prospect is? Though, it is quite important, but that is not the sole determinant. That being said, not all the CAs are "unemployed", a few of them are "not working" and we need to understand this.
And it is sort of unfair to compare the salary of the IIM graduates with that of ours. Reason being, that the roles are quite different and the same are not comparable. If we also expand ourselves in management roles, even we can carry the kind of fat wallets as do the IIM graduates do.
The present may look a bit bleak, but I strongly feel and sincerely hope that as the economy expands, opportunities will blossom and the new members will be welcomed with open hands and hearts.
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