PODCAST | EDU STATE : In-depth view of SAICA’s Initial Test of Competence results

Edu State is a SABC Digital News feature that focusses on the state of education in South Africa. In this episode, the spotlight is on SAICA’s ITC results. 

The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) in March released the Initial Test of Competence (ITC) results. This year the results indicated a 59% pass rate compared to a 64% in 2021. The ITC is one of the steps taken along the route to becoming a chartered accountant.

SAICA Executive for Learning, Development, and National Imperatives, Robert Zwane, says ITC tests the integrated application of technical competence that candidates develop within their programme.

“The ITC assesses how well a candidate evaluates the underlying problems in a given scenario through logical thinking and applying the theoretical knowledge that they have gained at the university. To pass the ITC candidates must firstly achieve a minimum of at least 50% but must also achieve a sub-minimum of at least 40% in three of the four professional papers. So, currently, ITC is written over two days and in each of the days there are two papers.”

Close to 3 000 candidates sat for the January ITC exams and 1 739 candidates passed. While the overall pass rate of the exams declined compared to 64% in 2021, Zwane says that there has been a significant improvement in the pass rate of the candidates that were writing the exams for the first time.

“So, we had a total of 2 946 candidates that wrote the ITC exams. It was written on January, the 26th, and the 27th and the results were recently released in March. So, if you look at the overall performance of the candidates, 59% passed the ITC in the January sit-ins. If you look at the overall population of 2 946 that means 1 739 candidates passed that assessment but also quite important if you now look at those results and look at those dynamics that are coming in, for example, first-time candidates that sat for the exams, showed quite a big increase in the performance from the previous year. So, our first-time candidates’ pass rate increased from 70% to 78% this year. If you look at those people writing the exam for the first time, the pass rate tends to be quite higher in that regard. The candidates that are repeating have a pass rate that still needs to improve for that to be acceptable to SAICA as well as inters of performance. “

Below is a podcast with SAICA Executive for Learning, Development, and National Imperatives Robert Zwane :