What is the biggest problem that Chartered Accountancy students are currently facing in India?

by Gaurav Reshamwala, CA Final. Ex- KPMG audit. Now- Yes Bank Investment Banking.

This CA course is full of flaws - right from the start up to the end. I'll enlist a few below -

• Passing percentage - Passing percentage of May 11 - '20%++' ; Passing percentage of November 2013 - '3%' ... Consistency, what? No matter how hard you work, you essentially have to be lucky to clear.
• Paper marking system - Probably the greatest con / scam ever. Gives Bernie Mardoff and Mr. Ponzi a run for their money. Paper pe kuch aur and marksheet mein kuch aur. *slow clap*. Jokes apart, all this scaling and grading nonsense is utterly ridiculous. They should strive to keep it fucking transparent.
• ITT/ Advanced ITT - It was a nice 30 day joke.  Apart from the few days of Excel training in Advanced ITT, it didn't help anyone one bit. To top it off, they'd give two fat books to prepare for that OLT, lol (not like anyone would study it, but still, lol).
• ICAI placements - If you've done your articleship from a top firm, chances are high that you won't even apply for placements - they don't exude class. Your eyes will be lit initially by seeing all the big names coming in but then, you'll get a reality check after learning the profile they offer - ACCOUNTS. :/.                  This time, Viteos capital (a mega US based fund) featured at our placements and, I thought ICAI is really progressing only to later learn that they wanted 90 people from India to set their back office here. :/
• IT in IPCC and ISCA in Finals - Let's not even get there.
• Absence of depth in Finance - Being in Investment Banking, a ferocious trader and an investor myself, I'm very disappointed with our SFM portion. ICAI only wants to preach theory. One must read a couple of chapters from the CFA curriculum and the same chapters should be read from the CA material - you'll know what I'm talking about. There's no practical explanation. After studying Derivatives, you still won't be able to punch a single F&O trade with your broker. After studying Mergers, you still won't be able to build a merger model. After studying Portfolio management, you'll still end up losing all your money in the markets.                     I touched base on this point since I've noticed that most of the freshly qualified CAs want a Finance job but fail to secure one.
• Useless Alumni - One of the biggest negatives of the course and community as a whole. I'll give you an example - B- Schools like Jamnalal Bajaj and Symbiosis have their glory days behind them, BUT, their placement season is yet top notch. WHY? Because, alumni.       That is absolutely not the case here.
• Inadequate emphasis on Industrial training  - ICAI, your friends, your parents - none of them will lay emphasis on the importance of Industrial training. So, let me. By the way, this doesn't apply to lads and lasses who want to practice or pursue Audit or Tax as their career.       Industrial training equips you with the skills you require in the future. It'll make you more salesy, more valuable, more networked, etc. After my stint at KPMG, I realised that Audit is not my thing so doing industrial for me was inevitable. I took up industrial training at YES Bank in their Investment banking division honestly not expecting too much. I had never been so wrong because, unlike a Bulge bracket IB set up where you have a common pool of analysts and associates who do any work dumped on them, our teams are separated via Sectors with a maximum of 4 (Including Senior director) a team. So the quality of work inevitably is top notch. I can make pitch books, information memorandums, build financial models, can do core research, basic valuations, etc. Tempted? I'm sure you are so PLEASE take it up. Life is definitely greener here compared to your daily audit and tax.

Well, I'll just stop with the ranting now. XD

Cheers.