DISAENSE TSA IKONOMI LE BOTSAMAISI
Phitlhelelo, Diawate & Dikgang
SCHOOL OF ACCOUNTING SCIENCES
The School of Accounting Sciences is grateful to mention the following recent highlights:
SAICA Part 1 Qualifying examination 2008: 82% pass rate, Top-10 candidate, 2009: 87% pass rate and distinction candidate, 2010: 81% pass rate and distinction candidate.
SAICA Part 2 Qualifying examination 2008: Top-10 candidate, 2009: 96% pass rate in PPE.
CIMA: One of the few universities worldwide with maximum exemption on managerial level, as well as the team (out of 24 national teams) who won the CIMA Global Challenge and represented South Africa in August 2010 in Malaysia. The top achiever in South Africa in 2009 in the CIMA examination’s paper TOPCIMA also hails from the PUK.
Furthermore, the School boasts the only undergraduate Forensic Accountancy programme in South Africa, wherein approximately 100 students have to date completed their master’s degrees in Forensic Accountancy. This programme also has close ties with the private sector and extraordinary professors include: Prof Louis Strydom (PWC); Prof Charles de Chermont (PWC); Prof Johan van der Walt (KPMG) and Prof Brenton Steenkamp (E&Y).
From 2010, a brand-new BCom Taxation degree was presented, which offers excellent job opportunities at the South African Revenue Services, companies and other enterprises, consultation-, audit-, and legal firms, as well as in the private sector.
STUDENTS
CA newsletter
The South African Institute of Professional Accountants’ SAIPA North-West University Student Association serves the students in our Faculty by seeing to their interests and representing them. An environment is created where interpersonal relationships are developed, which can help students to become involved in several aspects of their chosen field of study, so that each one can reach his/her full potential. Several student activities are organised annually and include, among others, a barbeque for final-year SAIPA students, a dine, a golf day and a two-day workshop where the classroom and practice are brought closer together.
SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS
Prof Paul Styger, one of the School of Economics’ senior members of staff, was recently awarded the Stalls Price for Economics from the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns (South African Academy for Science and Art).
The SA Akademie notes that Prof Styger’s work is testament of extraordinary subject expertise and that he is considered a world authority in his field. He receives the prize for his contribution to science, the academy, and in particular Economics. Of particular importance are the foundations for Bank risk management as field of study that he lay that are still utilised to the benefit of the country, as well as executive managers of banks across the world. He is also an authoritative figure on monetary economics, exchange rates, hedging with derivatives, bank regulations, as well as the strategic management of commercial and central banks.
Since 2006, a research team from the School of Economics has worked together with the Department of Trade and Industry on a model to identify realistic export possibilities for South Africa. On 1 September 2010, the team made the results of the Decision Support Model (DSM) on HS6 code level products and countries, known to senior DTI members. This team has also developed a DSM dashboard to present the results of the DSM to the Department of Trade and Industry, export councils and expoerters in a user-friendly manner.
SCHOOL OF HUMAN RESOURCE SCIENCES
Vlaamse Interuniversitaire Raad – Universitaire Ontwikkelingssamenwerking is funded by the Belgian government and is a collaborative agreement between the Gent Universiteit Belgi and the North-West University’s Potchefstroom Campus. It flows from an informal research collaboration between Prof Cara Jonker from the NWU (School of Human Resources) and Prof Johnny Fontaine, Gent Universiteit Belgi. A total of 246410 € will be invested in the project over a period of three to four years. The development of capacity in young academics (lecturers) of the disadvantaged groups is one of the main goals (the obtaining of three PhDs). The project aims to increase cross-cultural research skills and the end result will be the establishment of an emotion competency programme for the South African Police Service. The persons in the programme will also spend three to four months a year for the duration of the project in Brussels, Belgium in order to study research methodology and statistical methods.