The Associated of Certified Chartered Accountants (ACCA) Pakistan has enjoyed a successful year adding 595l students. This now makes a total of 14,144..
Pleased with the figures, Arif Masud Mirza, head of ACCA Pakistan, said: "We are very pleased with these results, which reflect great credit on the hard work of both the students themselves and the staff here in ACCA Pakistan."
ACCA Pakistan's success was reflected in ACCA's global growth figures. ACCA, the largest professional international accountancy body, has registered 63,000 new students in 2003.
With an impressive record of having recruited an average of over 60,000 new students a year for the third year running, and an overall growth rate of 10 percent a year for the past decade, ACCA now has 320,000 students and members in 160 countries and is on course to register its 100,000th member later this year.
Welcoming the figures, ACCA chief executive Allen Blewitt said: "We recognise that there is an abundance of choice of qualifications for young people entering business these days, so the growth in our student numbers shows that ACCA continues to provide a qualification, which serves as a springboard to a successful career. The figures are particularly pleasing given that during 2003, a number of important markets were affected by the Sars epidemic, civil unrest and war.
"While we are delighted to have maintained an impressive level of recruitment for the fourth consecutive year, we are already planning for developments, which will keep us at the forefront of accountancy education. From March we will begin an extensive global consultation to include students, members, employers, tuition providers, governments and regulators on the new syllabus for the Professional Development Scheme, which comes into effect in 2007," said Allen Blewitt.-PR