60,000 accountants needed by 2020

Malaysia will need 60,000 accountants by 2020. Currently, we have about 30,000 accountancy professionals in Malaysia of which 28 per cent are registered chartered accountants.

In line with this, higher education institutions (HEIs) and government agencies have formed partnerships with professional accounting bodies to enable the steady supply of professional accountants.

The most recent is the joint ventures of Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) with Talent Corporation Malaysia Bhd (TalentCorp) and Certified Public Accountant (CPA) Australia, and TalentCorp with Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA).

The first MOU between TalentCorp, UiTM and CPA Australia will enable 300 accounting students at UiTM to begin their professional qualification journey by taking one professional paper under the CPA programme while still pursuing their degree programme. Among registered accountants, Bumiputera constitutes only 8 per cent. UiTM has a professional accounting centre that aims to increase the number of professional Bumiputera accountantsto 25 percent by 2020.

Meanwhile, the second MOU between TalentCorp and CIMA is an industry-academia collaboration where participating employers and TalentCorp will jointly support 200 Malaysian accounting students at local universities undertake an internship and sit for CIMA professional papers.