KUCHING – Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus has earned the renewal of its Gold Approved Learning Partner (ALP) status from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), making it the only university in Sarawak to hold Gold ALP status.
ACCA’s ALP programme accords formal recognition to leading learning providers which offer quality tuition and support to students taking the ACCA Qualification and/or Foundation Level qualification. The ALP programme aims to approve the highest quality learning providers which have demonstrated their success in supporting students through the ACCA and Foundation Level qualifications. It also supports ACCA’s learning partners in providing students with the opportunity to succeed.
Dr Fung Chorng Yuan, senior lecturer and Acting Deputy Head of School of Business at Swinburne Sarawak, explained that Gold ALP approval requires the university to fulfil a range of challenging performance targets involving student experience and expectations in addition to institution policy and continuous improvement. Therefore, the renewal of Swinburne’s ACCA Gold ALP in 2022 speaks volumes about the quality of its ACCA courses.
“The most critical and difficult criterion is the pass rates target. For Gold ALP, we need to be consistently having at least half or more of our papers in each exam sitting reaching or exceeding the world pass rates. Achieving this requires us to have an effective teaching and learning ecosystem to help students consistently pass the exams,” said Dr Fung.
Swinburne Sarawak started to conduct ACCA courses in 2017. It was awarded Gold ALP status by ACCA in 2021. “This is a fantastic collaborative effort from the students, lecturers and all support staff members of the university. It symbolises our excellent ACCA teaching quality,” remarked Dr Fung.
He said Swinburne Sarawak’s ACCA students were predominantly its Accounting and Accounting and Finance degree students registered under the university’s ACCA Accelerate Programme, where students can take the ACCA examinations while in their second and final years of their degree programme. Under the ACCA Accelerate Programme, students enjoy a significant reduction in initial registration fee, exemption fees and waiver of annual subscription fee up to the year of graduation.
“Our ACCA lecturers hold not only a postgraduate qualification but also an ACCA qualification. Hence, they know the expectations of ACCA exams. They also attend the training courses conducted by ACCA from time to time to ensure they are up-to-date with the latest syllabus development. We have designated personnel to assist our ACCA students in handling and providing advice on all ACCA related matters, such as online registration, exam entry and exemptions.
“Our students prefer to study ACCA with us because they are familiar with the environment and the learning management system (LMS) – that is, Canvas – in the university. We have our own LMS that helps students to better manage their learning materials and resources effectively. This gives them peace of mind and they can focus on their studies,” said Dr Fung.
There are several key benefits for students who choose to study with an ALP learning provider. Firstly, students can be assured that they will receive high quality ACCA tuition and student support, as ALP institutions are assessed against ACCA’s widely recognised and esteemed global best practice benchmarks. Learning providers with ALP status will also have access to a range of development opportunities and tools provided by ACCA to support the continuous improvement of their tuition and students’ performance. Furthermore, in the event that students are unsatisfied with the way in which their ALP institution has dealt with their complaint, ACCA can intervene and request a report from the institution on how the complaint was handled via their complaints procedure.
Founded in 1904, ACCA is the global body for professional accountants. Employers all over the world seek out ACCA members to lead their business to sustainable success, as ACCA members are regarded as strategic thinkers with high ethical integrity, strong financial know-how and the right business acumen.