In a first-ever for the country’s corporate sector, Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) was chosen as an Authorized Training Office for the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales’s (ICAEW) ACA, widely recognized as the world’s leading chartered accountancy qualification programme. The programme is slated to commence from October.

PPL has been initially allotted a quota of five students. To be eligible for enrolment, the candidates should be fully qualified accountants from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan (ICAP), Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) or Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA). ACCA affiliates can also apply for the programme. Trainees will be selected according to strict qualifying criteria and be asked to sign a training contract and complete registration modalities before starting the programme.

The ACA training will be conducted in an ATO under the supervision of a Qualified Person Responsible for Training (QPRT). For PPL, SMF and Acting CFO Kamran Wahab Khan will be the QPRT and have the overall responsibility of managing the training and ensuring that PPL meets the requisite training standards on an ongoing basis.

M. A. Sadiqain Haider will be the training coordinator and responsible for overseeing the training and quality as well as serving as the contact person for the trainees and the Training and Development Department.

Trainees will be required to sit for three advanced stage examinations: Business Change, Business Reporting and a Case Study. Though no exemptions are allowed in the advanced stage, credits for prior learning will be given for the professional stage up to a maximum of 12 credits. Qualified ACAs of ICAP have to sit for an additional professional-stage Business Strategy paper.