A big difference between the old and the new ACCA Qualification is that the latter puts more emphasis on the ethics of accountancy by introducing the Essentials Paper P1, Professional Accountant, at the Professional level. And as a result Paper 3.7, Strategic Financial Management, has moved from a core paper to an Options paper. Almost all the questions on the Paper P1 are essay writing ones which focus on professional ethics, governance, internal control and risk, while nearly fifty percent of the total marks of the paper 3.7 are based on computations. So Paper P1 may be a welcome change for English native speakers as they have sound English writing skills, but for other students, especially in Asia who prefer to do the computational work, this change may be bad news. Even more difficult is the fact that there are no past papers of the P1 as it is a new kind of exam paper, the only one that we can refer to is the pilot paper. Although there are lots of difficulties for us to overcome before passing Paper P1, I would like to say that introducing the Paper P1 is a right and provident decision. Here I point out two simple reasons to support my view.
First, ethics have become hot topics in the profession of accountancy and all kinds of ethical issues are flooding into every space of accountants’ work. Although some people may argue that ethical knowledge is not as useful as accounting and financial knowledge, we must have a sound knowledge of professional ethics in order to become qualified accountants and P1 is the paper we need as it acts as the gateway into the professional level and sets the other Essentials and Options papers into a wider professional, organisational context.
Second, there is a growing tendency nowadays for employers to hire the accountants who have studied the professional ethics systemically. Paper P1 is such a paper that is developed to test your knowledge of ethics comprehensively. Success in passing Paper P1 may make you outstanding and become the accountant that employers are just looking for.
In conclusion, Paper P1 is useful and essential but it also brings us new challenges. We can read the technical articles for help and take some tuition courses in order to be successful in the exam.
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