1. Any Committee of the Council can conduct the Certification Course.
2. Announcement of the Course
Announcement of the course should be made at least three months prior to the beginning of the course. Announcement should be given in ` The Chartered Accountant’ Journal, Website and the local newsletter of the Regional Councils and the branch. This exercise is required so that the participants, who are professionals, can plan their participation.
3. Selection of Venue for organizing the Certificate Course
There is no bar to organize the course at Institute’s office, whenever it is available and appropriate. However, the respective Committee at its discretion may consider other venue including star hotels.
4. Background material:
4.1 All Committees organizing the certificate courses shall be under duty to provide the updated background material to each participant of the course. The background material shall be of the very good standards duly approved by the Committee.
4.2 The Background material should be prepared by the faculty who are experts in the topic. The same should be reviewed by another expert and the background material would be finalized by the Committee.
4.3 The Background material should be provided to the participants well in advance. The Background material should be standardized and be printed/ready before one month of launching the course. The Copy rights issues should be properly addressed to avoid any litigation. The author is required to give a declaration in a standard format taking responsibility about the copy right issue. The format is enclosed as Annexure I. (The format is the same as our publication department is taking from the authors).
4.4 The faculty of various sessions would be encouraged to provide their own background material to be distributed to the participants and these materials should be utilized to improve the background materials.
4.5 The decision of the Executive Committee taken from time to time with regard to payment of honorarium to the author for ICAI publications/background material may be followed in case of the Certificate Courses.
5. Prospectus
The prospectus should be concise, simple, informative and cost effective. The soft copy should be available on the website of the Institute which is freely downloadable. The prospectus should contain the details in the seriatum as per the performa attached as Annexure II.
6. Appointment of Coordinators and Directors:
There should be only one Coordinator of each course at each centre. To facilitate the accountability and effectiveness, officials of the Institute must be entrusted with this job. One elected Council member would be the Director for the Course at each centre. The Director & Coordinator would be appointed by the Committee.
7. Minimum number of participants
The minimum number of the participants should be 30-35 to bear the cost. The maximum number of the participants should not exceed 75.
8. Appointment and Honorarium of the faculty
8.1 To attract best faculty, honorarium to be paid to the faculty may range between Rs. 1,000 to 3,000 per hour depending upon the standing of the faculty, course and other rational aspects. The respective Secretariat should prepare a panel of faculty.
8.2 The respective Committees have to decide the qualification of the faculty depending upon the Course curriculum and the specialization required. This Faculty may be appointed as Speaker, Paper setter, evaluator of
answer scripts as well as case study and author of background material. They may also be appointed to prepare PPTs as detailed in Clause 9.
8.3 As far as possible the faculty should be local based. In case, the faculty is from outside, the number of such faculties should be minimum and the outstation faculty should take more than one session to make the exercise cost effective. The Committee will bear the cost as per TA DA rules for Council Members.
8.4 Each faculty should be restricted to take the technical Sessions subject to a maximum of 6 hours in a particular batch. The Group was of the opinion that it would pave the way to explore the new faculties.
8.5 The entitlement to the faculties with regard to hotel accommodation would not exceed more than the entitlement applicable to the Regional Council/ Central Council Members.
9. Standardized Power-point Presentation:
The Course contents should be divided into various chapters. To avoid repetition the Committees should prepare broad guidelines on the basis of the Background Material which should be given to all the faculties to follow the same in sequence. The power- point Presentations should be prepared by the faculty on the basis of the broad guidelines and to be vetted by an expert. The Committee will approve the Power-point Presentations. If possible, a faculty meet be organized before the commencement of the course so as to avoid the repetition. These PPTs will just be guide to the faculty to cover the topic. The faculty can prepare his own PPTs to make the session more practical and to share his views.
10. Formalities like bouquet, memento, vote of thanks etc.
There should not be any formalities like introduction of speakers, welcome with bouquet, mementoes to the faculties, and/or vote of thanks. The profiles of the speakers be circulated amongst the participants well in advance so that the participants would get more time for effective learning.
11. Frequency and duration of the course
11.1 Each course should be held at least once in a year in each region, except where there are no taker for the course.
11.2 The course should be held on the weekends (i.e. Saturday and Sunday) from 10 AM to 5 PM or courses can be organized on consecutive days to facilitate outstation participants.
11.3 The duration of the course shall not be less than 5 days in any case. The maximum duration of the course should not exceed 100 hours.
11.4 75% of the time should be devoted in class room teaching/hands on training and 25% in case/self-study.
12. Registration Fees
12.1 The fees would help to meet the cost of the faculty, background material and also to ensure that the members who are enthusiastic toward the course would only attend the course.
12.2 Considering the contents and coverage of the certificate course, the time to be consumed and the arrangement as well as the remuneration to be paid to the Faculties by the respective committees, the fee to be charged from the participants shall be between Rs. 15,000 to 50,000 per participant inclusive of BackGround Material Cost & first evaluation fees. In case, there is the need of Second evaluation, uniformly Rupees one thousand only shall be charged by the respective Committee.
13. Case Study by the participants and Group discussion
The case studies should be included in the background material as maximum as possible. There should also be one or two sessions on group discussions. The participants may also be encouraged to present case study either individually or in group.
14. Attendance
The minimum attendance for the course should be between 75-90%.
15. Examination/ Evaluation for the Certification Course
Every Committee who is organizing the Certificate course shall evaluate the participants through the examination process to be conducted by the respective Committee.
16. Honorarium for the Paper-setters, Evaluators of answer-scripts
The honorarium scale for the paper setters and evaluators for the Certification courses would be same as per the final CA examination fixed by the Examination Committee.
17. Standardised Format of the Certificate
A certificate of participation must be issued to the successful candidates by the respective Committees in the standardised format which is annexed as Annexure III.
18. CPE Hours
18.1 The participants of the Certification Courses would be eligible for CPE Hours under Structured Learning and Unstructured Learning as per the CPE Advisories on Structured Learning and Unstructured Learning.
18.2 The CPE hours credit will be granted to the participants on the date of completion of the course.
18.3 No proportionate CPE hours would be allowed to the participants.
18.4 The maximum CPE Hours may be as per the minimum requirement recommended by the CPE Committee for a Calendar year for the members in practice.
19. Eligibility Criterion
The Members of ICAI and the Students who have qualified their CA final examinations but yet to obtain the membership number of the Institute shall be eligible to pursue the certificate course being organized by any of the committees of ICAI. However the students who have qualified their CA final examinations but yet to obtain the membership number of the Institute shall be eligible for examination/evaluation only after getting their membership number from the ICAI. None other than the above are eligible for participating for any of the certificate course.
20. Feedback form
20.1 Feedback from the participants should be obtained in the prescribed Feedback Form, which is attached as Annexure IV.
20.2 The compilation of the feedback form for each batch must be placed before the next scheduled meeting of the concerned Committee along with report of the Course Director in Annexure V.
21. Submission of Accounts
Accounts for each batch must be placed before the next scheduled meeting of the concerned Committee.