Wisdom - The Specialist in CIMA education, recently announced its plans to train and mentor its next intake for the Test of Professional Competence in Management Accounting (TOPCIMA) - the final examination of CIMA curriculum.
Tharindu Ameresekere |
Anton Rock Fernando |
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Heading the panel this time is senior lecturer Anton Rock Fernando (MBA; ACMA; FSCMA; B.Com (Sp) (Hons); AIB; Dip. M; ACIM, followed by Tharindu Ameresekere (MBCS; MACS (Prov); BSc(Hons) Computing(UK); CIMA Passed Finalist, BCS (PGD) (UK). The team effort will entail that Anton Fernando will cover the Discussion of the Assessment Matrix, Industry Analysis, Analysis of Pre-seen material and the Discussion of Common Errors and Examiner Comments, while Tharindu Ameresekere will dedicate closer interface with each student by way of personalised attention as well as delivering lecturing finesse pertaining to the TOPCIMA Paper Based exams as well as PC Based exams which is gaining popularity amongst students that tend to be employed on a full-time basis.
Anton Fernando, a Chief Operating Officer of the Sri Lanka branch of a multinational FMCG company stated that the examining style for TOPCIMA is unparallel with those of conventional exams. "In this subject, the student is presented with a simulation of a real word business scenario in the case study - which is revealed at two stages: two months before the exam and the continuation of the scenario at the exam itself," he explained. "What is noteworthy here is that although the questions tend to be quite general in entailing the student to present his/her analysis and recommendation, the marking scheme does not reward knowledge. Instead, it requires the student to prove his/her competency and capability in knowing how to apply theories learned at previous levels into the context of the case," he added. Anton Fernando further added that while examinations in the fields of management, proficiency in accountancy offer a fine foundation in developing the levels of knowledge in students, TOPCIMA focuses primarily on how to get the job done, thinking on one's feet and contextualising knowledge accumulated and skilfully applying it to the task at hand. He added that competency and capability will be tested on nine areas; some of which include the extent to which the student demonstrates the ability to prioritise, the depth of analytical skills, the validity of the argument presented, the ability to integrate and evaluate and general presentation skills.
In contributing to the TOPCIMA experience at Wisdom, the young and dynamic Tharindu Ameresekere establishes that students ought to be mindful of the requirements of the assessment matrix by the CIMA body since it does indicate the expectation of the examiner. He further enthuses that ".....identification of the most important issues in the case, coupled with ethics and business morale and the students ability to identify the best out of several possible solutions...." play a key role in presenting a winning answer script to the TOPCIMA examiner.
Wisdom reveals that success at TOPCIMA follows a blend of three factors: firstly, academic; secondly practical and real-world scenarios and thirdly, the experience and expertise of the trainer.Wisdom Business Academy takes pride in professing that it offers a lecture panel that contains an effective integration of all three factors. Anton Fernando, the leading lecturer in TOPCIMA, counts 17 years of experience in the FMCG and banking sectors and has also produced four consecutive Sri Lankan prizes up to date. He also possesses lecturing experience in Australia, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Tharindu Ameresekere possess over four years of experience in lecturing and maintains extremely high student ratings and popularly known for his innovative style of teaching using up-to-date practical examples.
Both lecturers explained that Wisdom now plans to move a step ahead of its mass lecture style delivery and offer one to one lecturers to students of TOPCIMA. Anton Fernando explained that two dedicated markers will be trained in the marking of up to four mock exams in preparation of the final paper of CIMA. "As the examiner expects a presentation style that caters to reporting to a Board of Management, stringent preparation becomes mandatory," explains Anton Fernando. "Each student will receive feedback on the areas that they fell short of at each mock exam so that they are well groomed to face the exam," he added. "At Wisdom, an extremely comprehensive round of industry research is done so that in-depth analysis is possible," revealed Tharindu Ameresekere. "Students are served with a lavish share of material, past papers and examiners comments that we do take the time to discuss all of them. We also are working towards establishing an online forum that would increase the extent of their access to us. Potential problem areas will be posted on this and we will offer our feedback which would be most beneficial to them. In this way, it would save them a week until they meet with us again, as TOPCIMA lectures tend to be held on the weekends," he concluded.
Wisdom's lecture panel for TOPCIMA reveals that no shortcuts will be made in heeding the words of examiners comments, one of these being that Sri Lankan students do not usually demonstrate much maturity, confidence and decisiveness in presenting their answers. For this reason, the discussion of all past examiners reports has become a mainstay at Wisdom.
Wisdom Business Academy is an accredited CIMA (UK) Learning Quality Partner with an ISO 9001:2000 accreditation. It was founded in 2002 on the principle of grooming tomorrow's management accountants with financial expertise and strategic ability to take them closer towards career goals and success. In maintaining its accreditation as a CIMA Learning Quality Partner, it closely follows compliance guidelines stipulated by CIMA (UK). |
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