The University of South Africa (Unisa) announced on Wednesday that its accounting sciences programmes have been granted full accreditation status by the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (Saica) following months of implementing improvement plans in line with the accounting body’s requirements.
“We have worked hard to address the areas of improvement which were raised by Saica in their report last year,” said professor Cameron Modisane, deputy executive dean of the College of Accounting Sciences (CAS) at Unisa, adding that Saica conducted its follow-up visit on October 12.
“As the biggest producer of chartered accountants in the country, we are happy with the report and we can continue with our work of producing quality qualifications.”
Saica’s spokesperson Kgauhelo Diko refused to comment on the accreditation status of Unisa’s programmes and referred all the questions to the university. “Saica does not comment on the standing of the accreditation of individual universities,” Diko said.
In 2021, Unisa’s four programmes in the CAS were granted a rating 3, meaning accredited subjects met Saica’s requirements.
In line with Saica’s accreditation criteria which has three levels, when a programme is granted a level 3 opinion, “if appropriate action is not taken this could result in the programme accreditation status being withdrawn by Saica”.
Level 1 is granted to programmes that meet expectations under the status of “continue accreditation”, while level 2 is given to programmes that “need improvement”, meaning that they are accredited with conditions that need to be met within a specified time frame for the accreditation to continue.
“Saica has moved Unisa’s CAS from a previous rating of 3 to a continued full accreditation of the college’s programmes. This means Saica has continued its affirmation of Unisa’s accounting qualifications as they meet, to an appropriate extent, the education and related requirements,” Unisa said in a statement today
“This follows various interactions [written and physical] between CAS and Saica.”
Both committees [Saica’s academic and professional programme subcommittee and the initial professional development committee] concluded that the actions taken by Unisa in respect of the improvement plan constitute adequate responses to the earlier recommendations and resolved that the following Unisa’s accounting sciences programmes continue to be accredited.
• Bachelor of Accounting Sciences in Financial Accounting (SAQA ID 101110)
• Advanced Diploma in Accounting Sciences (SAQA ID 90559)
• Postgraduate Diploma in Accounting Sciences (bridging) (SAQA ID 90912)
• Postgraduate Diploma in Applied Accounting Sciences (SAQA ID 85107)
Modisane said the college will continue to work with Saica and to invest in research to ensure that the programmes are at the right standard.
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