Postgraduate Diploma in Management (Financial Accounting)

Further Information

The career opportunities for chartered accountants, both in South Africa and overseas, make this professional qualification highly desirable. To assist aspirant chartered accountants who have accounting qualifications from institutions that do not offer the postgraduate 4th year of study for chartered accountancy (or only offer it over 2 years) UCT offers a special diploma: the PGDM - Postgraduate Diploma in Management (Financial Accounting).

The duration of the entire programme is two years. The first year consists of the PGDM which is a bridging programme and must be undertaken on a full-time basis. This diploma provides an excellent preparation for the final year, the Postgraduate Diploma in Accounting (PGDA) which is done in the second year. This is then followed by a three year training contract with a firm of chartered accountants during which candidates may write Part 1 of  the Qualifying Examination (QE1).

It should be noted that a 3 year training contract with an approved auditing firm (where you will specialise in auditing) or an approved training organisation in commerce and industry (where you will specialise in financial management) is a prerequisite of the designation of Chartered Accountant. Training with an approved auditing firm is known as TIPP (training in public practice) while training with an approved training organisation in commerce and industry is known as TOPP (training out of public practice).

Candidates must select the appropriate training route dependent upon their choice of specialisation in either auditing or financial management. Those selecting TIPP must complete a specialist course in auditing after writing QE1 and those who choose TOPP must do a specialist course in financial management.

After a minimum of 18 months of the 3 year training contract and after passing Part 1 of the qualifying examination (QE1) and completing the selected specialist course, candidates may write Part 2 of the qualifying examination (QE2), which will be in either auditing (for TIPP) or financial management (for TOPP) depending on the chosen training route.