IPA calls for exam-based assessment
A second group has come out in support of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) moving away from overseeing training and education and called for an exam process to assess education levels and to raise standards.
Institute of Public Accountants (IPA) chief executive Andrew Conway said any concerns about ASIC lowering standards were misguided and it and the public “are better served by focusing resources on developing a rigorous exam process than maintaining the Register”.
ASIC first suggested the idea of a single three-hour exam in its first consultation paper (CP153) released in April 2011, but made no mention of it in a second paper (CP212) released in June which advocated a degree standard qualification for advisers from 2019.
Conway said the IPA was not opposed to improvements to the standards under RG146 but believed an exam would be the most effective way to raise education standards for financial planners.
“That way every provider will need to ensure that their training will be sufficient to ensure a participant passes the ASIC exam,” Conway said.
Conway agreed with ASIC’s statement that it was not a training course regulator. It added that ASIC provided the Training Register as way in which planners could see which education providers had been assessed as meeting RG146 requirements.
“There has been a misperception by some that the ASIC Training Register was a list of recommended providers, when it was only a list of training providers that have documented that they meet RG 146 requirements,” Conway said.
“By moving to a self-regulatory model, ASIC is merely clarifying the existing reality that it does not assess individual training courses.”
Conway also stated that financial services educators already operated under a robust training assessment regime, operated by state and federal agencies, that had mechanisms in place to ensure courses met RG146 standards - and responsibility for course assessments should remain with these bodies.
The comments follow those of Kaplan yesterday, which also expressed confidence in ASIC’s decision and the ability of education regulators to oversee financial services education and training.
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