Friends , CWA India has entered into collaboration with CMA US for reciprocal arrangement of membership for qualified candidates. This is being regarded as something very special. However there is an other side to this coin also. The exam structure of CMA US is totally different from the exam structure of CMA India. There is only 2 parts in CMA US and the exam pattern is multiple choice for 75%. Hence the passing rate is also high in CMA US. Compared to this CMA India is tough since the students have to grind it out to pass the final exams and it takes around 3 years in average and may be longer.
Now due to this reciprocal arrangements a number of students from India and abroad are doing CMA US and after passing trying to get the membership from ICWAI. This seems to be a much easier path. I personally know many of my friends who have done CMA US from Gulf and are applying for membership. Although the institute has safeguarded the statutory rights available for CMA India pass outs, still at present there are mushroom of private institutes in our country(one of them being LOGIC SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT, Ernakulam and many more) offering CMA US and wrongly advertising heavily in paper stating CMA US is equivalent to ICWAI and once CMA US is done, automatic membership to ICWAI can be taken. Hence in my place in Kerala, we are losing a lot of prospective students to CMA US. This might spread very fast to other parts of the country and students of CMA india who are grinding out to pass the exams will be in an disadvantageous position to CMA US students who get automatic membership in ICWAI after passing the two parts. There has to be some safeguards by the institute in this regard.
I would state that CIMA from UK is more like our structure and hence there is not much differences between passouts of both institutes. But the institute has to relook into the arrangement with CMA US and provide some additional safeguards for students of CMA US to gain membership in CMA India. Otherwise the course of ICWAI will lose its sheen to CMA US very fast.
Regards
John John