Sep 07, 2001 10:55 PM
17061 Views
One of the most prestigious institutions in India, producing some of the best financial minds in the country, probably destroys the most minds in the world.
Picture a man fresh out from college, filled with burning ambitions and all the enthusiasm that one has at that stage in life, then see what this profession asks of this person.
Firstly you need to sign a 3 year one sided contract which binds you to work for a principal at a wage (not a salary) which is not even a tenth of the minimum wage at the moment. To be precise, the Institute subscribes a minimum 'stipend' of Rs 450pm for the first year, Rs 600 for the second year and Rs 900 for the third year of your training. 99% of the firms in India never give a rupee more than this amount. I know for a fact that beggars on the road make more money that an article clerk.
Add to this the life style that one is expected to lead, a minimum of 8 hours a day and atleast 35hrs a week, which invariably turns out to be 70-90 hrs a week. There is no such thing as overtime prescribed by the institute so no one ever feels compelled to offer the same. How long is a person expected to work endlessly with no adequate or proportional reward ?? Well sooner or later even the most hard working of students realises the futility of this system and learns the technique of tactfully avoiding work, i.e. never taking responsibility for anything thus never having to be the one spending all night at work in order to meet deadlines. So you now have a system which creates people who are professionals at the art of looking busy but doing nothing and taking no responsibility. Within the first year you lose all the disillusions about this world being the perfect thing that you always thought it would be and discover its a place where every man is only looking to get ahead of the next with the least effort. Is this really what our country needs ??
So whats the alternative, well most people take the easy way out, sign under a principal and never show up for work, and at the end of the three years the principal gives them a certificate saying that they have worked the required amount. All this while these people get to concentrate on their studies and then compete with the people who were spending 90hrs a week working as prescribed by the institute and never having time to attend classes, so when it comes to exams those who played it by the rules get f-cked and those who took the easy way out go on to qualify and ride the gravy train as a Chartered Accountant with underpaid articles to do their work.
At the end of it your once bright and ambitious and hardworking college graduate is reduced to a frustrated and unsuccessful failure.
One may argue that this is not the case and this rarely happens, all u need then do is look at is the success rate in the CA final exams which is barely 1-2%. Meaning after all this hard work 98 in every 100 people land up giving their exams more than once... what sense of justice would it leave in a person ?
If you really want to create a strong professional body, this is probably the worst way possible to do it.
The author is a rank holder in the CA Inter examination, and is yet to appear for the final exam.
