The One and Only Master's Degree from UOL for ACCA Members
Are you an Association of Chartered Certified Accounts (ACCA) affiliate or member? If so, you would already know that the ACCA is the world's leading professional accountancy body with more than 233,000 fully qualified members globally. As part of this elite group, you can also count yourself among the most highly sought-after accountants across all sectors.
12 Jul 2021
4 mins
Are you an Association of Chartered Certified Accounts (ACCA) affiliate or member? If so, you would already know that the ACCA is the world's leading professional accountancy body with more than 233,000 fully qualified members globally. As part of this elite group, you can also count yourself among the most highly sought-after accountants across all sectors. Don't simply take our word for it though, because as you already know, the truth lies in the numbers. In June 2020, ACCA Careers had nearly 150,000 job adverts from around the world from companies such as Ernst & Young, Amazon, PwC, Nestlé and Deloitte, all of whom were actively seeking ACCA candidates.1
Apart from greater employability, ACCA members also enjoy the flexibility to work in any industry at a top-level organisation, as well as opportunities to further develop your skills through a mix of professional and technical knowledge gathered through a wide range of learning options: face-to-face, online, full-time or part-time ACCA-accredited programmes.
With such benefits readily available, it's tempting to simply sit on your hands and reap the rewards from doing what you're accustomed to. However, just like the world is undergoing a digital transformation, the nature of accountancy and the role accountants play in business are changing too. As such, it has become a necessity to stay up to date with the latest accounting trends, acquire new skills and document your personal progress to reflect your commitment to continual professional development.
All this brings us to an important question: how can you upgrade your professional accounting qualifications while remaining at your present job? Today, we inspect the Master of Science in Professional Accountancy (MPA) programme offered by SIM GE, a course that has been meticulously designed by the world-renowned UCL School of Management, UK with the resultant qualification awarded by the University of London (UOL), UK.
Advantages of Pursuing Your MPA at SIM GE:
They say that knowledge is power. In the case of the MPA offered by SIM GE, that truly is the case, since it provides great value to accountants aspiring to senior roles in various ways, which we have handily summed up as follows:
- Time and money savings - Compared with the cost of studying for an accountancy qualification and a master's degree separately, the MPA at SIM GE helps save time and money for many ACCA students.
- Flexibility to suit your needs - You can complete the MPA programme in just 6 months under the full-time study mode, or opt for the 12-month part-time mode to accommodate your busy schedule.
- Trusted academic reputation - Academic direction for the MPA is provided by UCL School of Management, which ranked among the Top 4 UK universities in The Times Higher Education Ranking (2020) and Top 10 institutions in the QS World University Rankings (2020).
- Professional recognition - The programme's modules are the first to be recognised by ACCA to count towards the professional level of the ACCA qualification, enabling you to also gain Continuing Professional Development (CPD) hours upon completion of the entire degree.
- Holistic development - The full-time MPA programme features additional workshops intended to strengthen your professional communication and data analytics skills, and also grants exposure to global networking opportunities.
Wonder if you meet the requirements to take up the MPA programme? Here are the conditions you have to fulfil:
- Must be a current ACCA Affiliate or Member
- Minimum age of 19 years old during registration with UOL
- Passed all nine ACCA Applied Knowledge and Applied Skills papers (or exemptions approved by ACCA)
- Passed all two ACCA Strategic Professional Essentials papers (or their equivalent)
- Passed all two ACCA Strategic Professional Option papers (or their equivalent)
- Completed last ACCA Strategic Professional Option paper (or its equivalent) no more than 5 years ago
Future Prospects
If you meet the programme criteria and have decided to take the leap towards an MPA at SIM GE, you would be pleased to know that a wealth of prospects, both career and academic, await you. One of these is the ability to further your studies in the PhD programmes in UK universities and doctoral programmes around the world. In a more practical sense, graduates can also accelerate their career by developing a strategic or international focus, with potential pathways including jobs in business analysis and development, banking, strategy consulting, corporate finance and more.
As MPA graduate Rashika Fernando, Director (Enterprise Project Management Office) at Scotiabank, puts it: “In a rapidly changing economy, I find this arsenal of skills and techniques that I gained through my master's degree immensely useful. It helps me adapt and keep pace in an ever-changing landscape.”2
To find more about our Masters in Accounting programme offered by SIM GE or to register your interest, visit our website now.
1 ACCA Global: Common questions about ACCA and employability (https://yourfuture.accaglobal.com/global/en/blog/employability.html)
2 University of London: How I took my ACCA qualifications further (https://london.ac.uk/news-opinion/london-connection/q-and-a/how-I-took-ACCA-qualifications-further)
Posted online, 12 Jul 2021