The innocence of youth
Botswanan teenager Nilima Bhagi has become the youngest
person to achieve the AAT accounting qualification, TS hears. After teaching herself
two modules, Nilima passed her exams at the age of 16 after 16 months of
training – half the recommended time for the course, the AAT tells us.
Such precociousness could well shame all those other AAT
students still struggling to pass through the first couple of modules. But what’s
of more concern to TS is that the AAT has opened the number-crunching floodgate
for this Botswana-based book-keeper. Nilima is setting her sights on CIMA and
ACCA qualifications.
She’s already working as an in-house accountant for a
company that works with the government of
of her dad’s company.
But she’s clearly not learned the first thing about the
trade: the sooner someone sees sense and puts her on the fast track to a
partnership, where she can attend events across the globe while palming off the
real work to some lowly minion.