The English ICA council will meet this weekend to debate the introduction of provisional membership for students and discuss plans to head off Big Five withdrawal threats with revamped training.
Under discussion at a meeting today of the institute’s education and training forum was a proposal to change the current qualification to make it more business focused. The forum offered widespread support for the plan and it is thought that council will back the proposals when it meets during its annual conference on Saturday.
Institute president Dame Sheila Masters said the new programme had been produced ‘against all odds’ and said a solution must be found that all members can take forward.
Through extensive consultation, the profession – most notably the Big Five – has demanded the revised qualification be relevant, attractive, flexible.
Institute education and training executive director Brian Chiplin pledged the qualification would be more focused on business advisory skills with new professional and advanced stages with a new way of learning and assessment.
If adopted, the qualification is likely to begin life with the September 2001 intake of students starting the professional stage. Chiplin warned aiming for a September 2000 start would be ‘high risk’ but not impossible.
Institute president Dame Sheila Masters said: ‘I would be very surprised if there were not a broad measure of support.’
Francis Hall, senior HR manager at Mazars Neville Russell, said the proposal matched far more what was going on in the real world.
Additionally, the institute is proposing to establish a provisional membership category to offer a better relationship with students as they study.