Become a Chartered Accountant
In this 'Become a Chartered Accountant' podcast series you will hear directly from members and students of Chartered Accountants Ireland and how they decided on the ACA qualification, their journey and how their careers are going.
Become a Chartered Accountant
Ian Browne: AI, Adaptive Learning and the Evolution of the ACA
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There is more change happening in Chartered Accountancy education right now than at any point in the profession's history. In this episode, Sinead Fox-Hamilton is joined by Ian Browne, Director of Education at Chartered Accountants Ireland, to step through it all.
Ian explains how the ACA syllabus has been transformed for the modern workplace, with AI, data analytics, automation and sustainability now sitting alongside the technical core, and why skills such as critical thinking, professional scepticism and systems thinking matter more than ever. He shares the story of how the Institute became one of the first professional bodies in the world to move to fully online exams, how adaptive learning is giving every student a personalised pathway through their studies, and what the new modular structure, with three intakes a year, means for anyone planning their route into the profession.
Ian also shares his advice for anyone considering the ACA, and why he believes accountancy, as the language of business, is the best possible launchpad for any career.
Find out more at becomeacharteredaccountant.com
Professional skepticism is the endpoint of critical thinking for the audit profession. So that's a very specific pillar. But to be fair, in this modern era, it's probably really important to have that in general, people in society, wouldn't it be really cool if people were really good at critical thinking?
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:This is the Become a Chartered Accountant podcast. I'm Sinead Fox-Hamilton from the team, and today we have got a special episode, for we have the director of education at Chartered Accountants Ireland, Ian Browne, with us. There's so much exciting change going on, and I wanna step through it all. So Ian, delighted you could be with us today. How are you doing?
Ian Browne:Thanks very much, Sinead, and I'm absolutely delighted to be here with you.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Well, look, will we get into it? There's lots to cover. So what about we start at the start? I'd love to know a bit more about, I suppose, the evolution of the education. It's very different to when I trained, the program. I'll not say when. Way back when. But the program has evolved, and if we talk maybe about, I suppose, the, the syllabus, it has come on in leaps and bounds. Talk us through the evolution.
Ian Browne:Yeah, and in fairness to the institute, there's always been that ebb and flow of how syllabus would- Yeah … evolve over time, right? And obviously, w- but what's probably happening more is syllabus is in, is being affected by what's happening in the macro environment.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Yeah.
Ian Browne:The macro environment is changing much more faster and rapidly than- Right … it ever has before, so the syllabus itself has to adapt to that.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Yeah.
Ian Browne:Um, so that has put more pressure on us to be up to, up to d- as up to date as we can. Yeah. And effectively, we really started working in earnest on that o- maybe over a decade ago. Um, historically, uh, most institutes will have a five-year academic cycle program, and we found that we've had to go a little bit faster and more often than that in terms of the tempo of rolling out syllabi. Um, and what, w- well, the important piece was to make sure that w- as the profession in the real world, per se- Yeah is actually progressing at a rate that we've got to stay as close to possible as to where the profession is at that one time. Mm. And we do that by massive stakeholder engagement and research, and that's an ongoing piece. We have an innovation center that kind of horizon scans for us to make sure that we're up to the, to the latest in w- what, what, where the profession has gotten to. We've been incredibly lucky as well as the institute. Uh, obviously 40,000 members. That's an incredible resource that we've been able to tap into. So what you're seeing then is a reflection of that broader global community, and I think we're all the better for that, and I think there's something in that for the future if as we go forward to not lose that. Like, ultimately not lose the leveraging off of the sense of community that we actually have.'Cause together we all contribute to make a profession.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:And in terms of, I suppose, bringing to life what students could expect from our program now, it's not just technical accounting. Talk us through all of that juicy content that sits now within the ACA program.
Ian Browne:Yeah. So like back, back in the day, I suppose it would've been a lot worse than the technical pieces that have to be covered off from a regulatory perspective.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Yeah.
Ian Browne:So like, there would be the, like the financial reporting, the auditing, the tax, the law, all of those technical drops. The, when we went out over the last sort of five to six years in terms of with, with talking to people all over the world and in industry and in practice and saying, "What are the kind of future skills that we need to see in the, in the profession going forward?" The technical are still important and they are still there, so that's clear to everyone out there- Yeah … that they are still there, so everyone can rest assured at night. Nobody's, nobody's gonna- No sleepless nights … No sleepless nights- They're there … of like, oh my God, like the audit standard- Audit is not there. Audit is not there … Audit is, is- It's there … is there big time, okay? So that's, that's great, but what's really important going forward is what we've d- developed, and we call them transversal skills. Mm. In other places they're called other things. Um, but the transversal skills, and we start off with somebody coming in at the be- at first day one is that module around learning to learn. Mm. And understanding that the learning journey you're on as a potential future chartered accountant or anything in life You need to know that it's the ability to learning to learn on, on your journey, your lifelong journey. This is not just a one and done, you do three years of, of, of your training contract or three and a half years of your training contract, and you're done and off you go.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Yep.
Ian Browne:You have to learn for life. So that's, that's, that's a critical skill to give anyone. Mm-hmm. And in fairness, we're seeing that, like, these transversal skills aren't really purely specific to accounting, whilst we tailor them to suit the accountancy profession- Yeah … these are life skills. So, and the, and the other pillar that we've several pillars of these, uh, one would be in terms of intellectual curiosity leading to critical thinking skills, leading to professional skepticism, because professional skepticism is the endpoint of critical thinking for the audit profession. So that's a very specific pillar. Yeah. But to be fair, in this modern era, it's probably really important to have that in general, people in society, wouldn't it be really cool if people were really good at critical thinking? Yeah,
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:absolutely. Yeah. It's
Ian Browne:never a bad thing, right? And obviously, in the way, in the world we're in today. The other side of it, uh, we look at, we have pieces on ethics and all the ethical philosophy leading to ethical strategy. We have, uh, pieces around, uh, the learning to learn leading to problem-solving, um, uh, uh, systems thinking, uh, strategic thinking, all, uh, that problem-solving piece. Um, and these are kind of key skills that, like, we're calling out as kind of key modules because in the future when we talk about maybe the, this threat of AI coming, in an ideal world it'll be more of a cognitive augmentation- Mm-hmm sort of scenario, where you still need the actual accountant in the, in the loop- Mm-hmm … the human in the loop to actually be doing the critical thinking piece, the strategic thinking, uh, the systems, the value creation aspect of that, and the narrative around that. So they're important. They're more important now and will be in the future than ever before, but we need to teach people the key frameworks so they can hang that knowledge off. Historically, we, uh, pe- now, that's not to say that anyone that's out there that qualified before a certain time that we're doing transverse skills didn't possess critical thinking. Of
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:course.
Ian Browne:Of course they did, and it was developed through their training on the job in, in wherever they were trained, or, and with, in, in augmentation with the education program we have That was always embedded in the program, but we now feel that it's important that it's also taken out and has its own importance of its own right. Now we're teaching, obviously, systems thinking in relation to accounting and how it interacts with different m- Like, so for ex- I'll give you an example. How can we do sustainability, all right, without systems thinking? Because ultimately the globe and the, and, and, and the sphere we s- all, rock we all sit on is one big system. So how, so if you wanna do work in terms of sustainability assurance work, you know, you have to be able to think within the system of climate and other, other aspects, and social and governance and all that kind of piece. But you also, to do all that, where do you get all the data? Well then that comes from ultimately a, a much more in-depth view of data analytics, et cetera, et cetera. So you can't, without having sort of the, the ability to be able to deal in analytics, AI, systems thinking, and all of those different facets all brought together in a more formal framework way, um, the future of the profession, it'll be harder and harder for people to hit the ground running from, you know, day one, day two in their training. That's one of the other things that people like saying, "Oh, well, AI's gonna take our jobs." Actually, what we're actually hearing from industry is, "No, actually, AI coming into the profession is actually gonna take some of the drudgery out of it," right? At the start. So what we're looking for now is, yeah, we're still looking for young graduates coming in, but we need them to be able to have more of a strategic thinking mindset earlier in the day. So historically we might have been getting somebody to strategic thinking in year, between year two and year three of our program. They're looking for that sooner and sooner now. So, and like, and that's, that's a great challenge for young people coming into the profession.'Cause if you really want to come into a profession that's really gonna activate your, your brain and, and send you thinking laterally very early, we're gonna be able to teach you the key frameworks to be able to do that, and do that in a really meaningful way. Which is not just, uh, good for working in the profession or that, it actually leaves you set up for any form of launchpad for your life. Because if you look at our actually 40,000 member- Mm-hmm … community, which is awesome, you go around the world and look at even the broader amount of people that are in accounting. People that pull up three bar stools at a bar in Ireland and start telling them, "What does an accountant do?" They're not gonna get it right- Mm … because it is so broad, it's such a, a, a, an amazing community- With different vectors that you can go in. Think of accounting more now not necessarily as technical skills, which it still is, but it's more than that. Accountancy is actually like a language. It's the language of business. So it's, like, basically you're going to come get educated in the most proficient language of business, which allows you go off then to any facet of the world in any form of business and understand it, but also be able to add long-term sustainable value creation to any business that you're being a part of. And I can tell you, it'll be a long time before AI replaces any of that.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Absolutely, and I love the fact you've touched on that because I think there's still such a misconception out there as to what accounting is, and as you rightly say, it's all about business. Trusted business leadership, our tagline- Yeah which we'll get onto, um, later. You mentioned a couple of subjects there that I'd love to, um, deep dive a wee bit more about all that emerging technology. It's in our syllabus now in terms of data, AI, robotics, and also sustainability. You touched on that. I think that's gonna be a surprise to people. How did that end up in an accounting syllabus?
Ian Browne:The sustainability or the AI or all
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:of it? Well, both. Or- Yeah … the emerging technology, the AI, the s- sustainability. It's not audit, it's not tax- Yeah … it's not the technical stuff, uh, expected.
Ian Browne:Yeah, there was a… So I came to the institute about 11 years ago this August, not to be exact. F- the 15th of August. What date? The 15th, right? You're an
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:accountant, you know the date.
Ian Browne:Literally the week before FE.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Oh.
Ian Browne:Yeah. Ooh. So it was a big deal, right? To m- I was head of assessment and syllabus back then, and I came in the week before FE, so it was a big deal for me. Oof. Yeah. But anyway, still here, uh, uh, almost 11 years later. Well done. So it's great. When I came in and I, uh, inherited the syllabus that was there pre-2015, there was a little tiny section down the bottom end of it at FE, in FE core that just said a, a little heading,"Emerging Technologies." And it was like, where's the future gonna go? What's the, what's the latest thing? And it was always designed that that could be constantly evolved, but it wasn't very perscript- prescriptive. And, uh, come 2017, sort of two years in on, in- into the role, uh, we really started to look and said, "Look, we need to do a- Mm-hmm … a proper look at the syllabus now and, and really take this emerging technology," there's one little section on the bottom,"and really let's blow that out. But what are we gonna do with that?" Yeah. Um, and there was a couple of varying things that we, we, we looked at at the time and, um, AI was in its, very much in its infancy back then. This is 2017. This isn't like three years ago.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Mm-hmm.
Ian Browne:Um, and we placed one of our team members on a, they did a particular course over in, um, in MIT. Uh, it was a r- so just for everyone that's looking in, it was a remote one. So it was a- … an online course. It wasn't that we farmed somebody off to MIT. But, um, and they did that course in, in, in, uh, AI. And then there was also another person did a course in analytics and that. So what we found from all of that, and in 2018 we started to kind of launch our new FE core syllabus. And within that what we would've started to see is we started to teach the fundamentals of back then AI.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Mm-hmm.
Ian Browne:So we were talking about natural language process, et cetera, and, uh, LLMs and what was coming. And we also kind of went at the time, which was very groundbreaking and still very few accountancy syllabi globally have it in there, is actually go, we really went in heavy on- Automation, so ro- RPA, um, and, uh, analytics and data visualization and all that kind of piece. And what we were doing there was actually setting people up with the skills to actually really get into in-depth working of analytics tools. Yeah. Now, at the time, we went very much for a vocational kind of, uh, approach to it, whereby it wasn't just about teaching the theory of analytics. We partnered up with, um, three companies in particular, UI- UiPath, Alteryx, and Tableau, and you might say, "Why'd you pick them?" And the reason why we picked them, this is great, going back to the community at the time. So we were reaching out to all the major firms. Mm-hmm. The major firms at the time were actually starting to offer every employee in the, their firms a UiPath automation license, uh, an Alteryx data analytics license, and a Tableau visualization license. So we were kind of going, "Okay, well, that's good because then if they're going to have this in the job- Mm-hmm … rather than say, let's get ahead of that, let our program be teaching how to actually use tangibly, how to create an automation to help you with creditor reconciliations, to help you with the payroll files, to help you so that they could add value from day one when they graduate off of the back of, um, their FEs and, and they're qualified. Um, and so the linkages was there. So while people were sitting in the class and actually having to tangibly feel and touch, they were actually had licenses in the job. So now at the time, we came under a bit of pressure from the firms back the other way, because now you had people who were trainees who maybe knew a lot more than, say, the managers in- Okay that were managing them in terms of the licenses that had literally just come into the firm. But that's okay. That's part of that. There should be a degree of tension in the system to allow for that because here's the thing, if that's not there, well, then you're not really leading the charge of the light brigade in terms of innovation. Okay. Mm-hmm. Because if there's not a little bit of a, a disruption in there, well, then you're not really disrupting. So now that was a piece, and then obviously then our CPD lifelong learning offering comes on behind that, and then it kind of fills that gap for those in the mid-tier, uh, uh, previously qualified people. But it was a very, very specific and deliberate move that we moved to there. And obviously now we're in the phase now of, uh, in our latest phase of moving it to the next phase of that. But like when people talk about, I either laugh, people talk about AI. We're, we're looking at that and within our syllabus since 2018, and in giving people real skills to be able to do stuff that is around automations and all that kind. But also understanding the underpinning of all of those technologies. And in a lot of cases even say in a- analytics, understanding that there's still problems like, like back, back when I first came to the institute, people were talking like big data and they were talking blockchain. That was going to revolutionize the piece. Now we ha- it moves on in phases. Now I know AI is slightly different. Yeah. That's a different thing. But, uh, the, the, the piece is constantly evolving. Now from somebody looking out from the outside in and say, "Oh, well back 10 years ago, 15 years ago when I studied to be a chartered account, God, it's quite different now." Mm-hmm. It hasn't been a big bang. Now, and I know, uh, you interviewed, uh, our current president, Pamela McCready recently, and Pamela said to me, uh, about two years ago at an event I, I had met Pamela, if this was a 10-year overnight change.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:That's a good way to put it. Yeah, yeah.
Ian Browne:It's a 10-year. There's been logical incrementalism has occurred. Yeah. So f- but from somebody who's outside looking in, it might look like that's, wow, that's a, that's quite a big revolutionary change. But in terms of syllabus, what we've actually done, if you look at the, the global space, yeah, it, it's seen at the sort of the IFAC level in terms of being quite ahead of where a lot of other bodies are, right? Mm-hmm. So that's good, and we need to be. We should be proud of who we are as an Irish institute, and we can punch above our weight because why? Because it's leveraged off the 40,000 members' experience. Our 40,000 members are some of the most senior people in the world of business. So like, if we're le- leaning into that, of course we're going to be at the front end. So we've, we've done that. Um, when you actually step back and you get really into it, you'll see that it was staged all the way through. So it was really logical incrementalism and an evolution in that for our syllabus. But in terms of that's the kind of what we have changed to teach. Mm-hmm. But in terms of how we've changed our teaching, well, we've gone for maybe what would look like much more revolutionary approach. But again, there was a slow, logical thought process went in to changing what something looks like it changed overnight. It actually changed in little increments to get to there. And then it's like the kinda, the analogy of the frog being boiled. Like, it's just gone up one degree at a time, then the next minute, oh God, it's, it's gone too warm. So there's a… It's just been a lot slower for us on the inside to maybe been looking at this for over a decade. Um, I'm happy to share here today that journey.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Absolutely, and we will. We'll get into the, the how. Um, it's important, I suppose, that we just, as we close off that section on the what we've did, we've very much revolutionized a syllabus to be fit for purpose for the modern workplace, what employers want, future-proofing the skills of our generations that are coming through our ACA program. It's, it's, it's amazing. It's a different program b- to what I did and to what many other people of my time, but it is so exciting, and the feedback I get on the ground is that it's hitting the nail on the head for what the business marketplace needs. And then we're coming onto the how. We're not doing it, uh, in a traditional way. Again, that has changed over time. So it's a digital-first delivery now. Talk me through that. How did we get there?
Ian Browne:Um, so again, it's that journey, right? Um, we look at it's, it's happened in stages. So we were one of the first, we were the first major regulated body in the world to have online assessment. And that happened for different varying reasons. Won't get into the detail of that, but obviously we, that we rolled out online exams. Uh, we had started the journey in 2018. Yeah. So we'd taken away from the exam halls where you did your exams to actually go and taking it home. And one of the th- big things that drove that at the time was when we were actually, there was a lot of people increased levels of anxiety maybe in students in terms of when they get into an exam setting. And the science at the time had said that people are, feel the most safest in their own home, and that they actually would do a little bit better, less stressed. And I remember an old poster I had when I was going to college. It was of a cow looking over a sh- over a railing in a field, and it just said, "Less stress, more success." But it actually, there was a science in it. Like, at the time I thought it was a mad poster. It was brilliant. But there's actually a science to that. So when we were looking at it in terms of we had seen our reasonable accommodations grow quite considerably.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Okay.
Ian Browne:And a lot of cases was people, uh, needed a, a room on their own off the main exam venue with a laptop. Well, that kind of is what we do in, on online assessments, so we were solving that problem, but helping everyone get the benefit of having the, the private room and your laptop. So we, we started that journey in 2018. We rolled out our first set of e-assessments, uh, in November 2019, which was a, a big deal globally 'cause the, what we do is regulated, highly regulated in terms of, and the Irish regulator being IASA and FRC in the UK, um, and for the North. So the, we had a lot of risk assessment to get over to get to there. So we started to pilot 10% of our exams, low-hanging fruit at the lowest level. We were gonna move over a four or five-year period. November 2019.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Mm-hmm. Right? Heh.
Ian Browne:Mm-hmm. Something happens in, uh, in spite of that- Familiar… something happens- Yeah, yeah a few months later, right? So-
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Spoiler… Ian Browne: yeah. So we, we, we go out there and we say,"All right, we wanna go to, uh, to move people to online exams, so we're going to do a pilot for 10%. Over the next three to five years, working with the firms and students, we'd move to all online exams." Luckily enough then in March 2020, and I won't say the name of it because you'll probably get like, uh- PTSD s- well, struck off the, the channels as well, you know, who say it. But anyway, so when you come to March 2020, we already had online remote and vigilated exams, which means you could take your exams at home in your own house and, and we had the security protocols and all that wrapped around. So we were one of the few professional bodies anywhere in the world that actually were able to continue running exams. Not almost immediately, like we had to take our three-year project plan and reduce it down to three months. So we pushed out our exams. A- and, and, and thankful to the firms as well for their support in this, because it was a big team effort to allow us to, uh, p- 'cause i- in March 2020, we were all going home for a week and it was all going to be gone. That's right. Yeah.
Ian Browne:But it wasn't going to be simple as that. So we went to… And the Irish Leaving Cert was going to be h- held into June and it was going to be, everything was going to be fine. We were going to get back. Yeah. So what happened was we, we continued to roll out our, uh, e-assessments and we rolled out all of our online exams by August of that year. And we, there was, there was, uh, we were ahead of the curve, thankfully. Yeah. Now, that meant though, that we had to switch through, through that period, March 2020 onwards- Mm-hmm … to an online education delivery.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Yeah.
Ian Browne:Through no fault of ours and no fault of anyone else. And so we did so, and we pivoted, but we understood that when we were doing that, that was suboptimal. Yeah. Because we were just making do.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Yeah.
Ian Browne:Right? And so did every school and college the world over. That was it. And what we said was, we went with something that was, was gonna just get us by for a period of time, and then we, we knew we were going to do a massive research into the, we need to really look at the revolutionizing piece of- Mm-hmm the h- the, the, the how we teach. Why? Because the good old days maybe weren't quite as good a days that everyone remembers. You always have rose-tinted glass when you look back.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Yeah. Yeah.
Ian Browne:We were getting it harder and harder and, and the, like, the stats are the stats. In terms of people coming to face-to-face lectures- Now, out of the hard stats, people will have the anecdote and like this, that, and the other. The facts were, here's what good looked like leading from 2015 to 2020 be- before the, the sickness piece happened, pervasive sickness. We had less than 30% of our lecture theaters were full any one night. And what was happening was students were basically coming … They're very, very busy.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Mm-hmm.
Ian Browne:Right? N- nobody's doubting that. Firms are busy. That's a good thing. But people were coming as best they could, and then they were having to self-study in an environment that wasn't built for that because we were all in, all in person.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Yes.
Ian Browne:So if you missed it, you were basically then self-studying the bit you missed. And in a lot of cases, uh, we, we had interim assessments that were there to drive engagement, but then some people might miss, like, to do the interim assessment, then may get busy in work again, they go drop off for a few weeks and then come back. What we found was the study leave at the very, very end-
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Yeah… Ian Browne: was being left. Now, that's a period where people were self-studying. Yeah. When the education programs wrapped up, their ability to ha- and they're gone off study leave from their firm, and they didn't have the same in-house supports at the firm as well. And that's where a lot of the learning was actually happening, which is not good for the learner, the trainee. Mm-hmm.
Ian Browne:It's not good for the institute, not good for the firm. It was suboptimal. That was before we went online. Then we went online, and we saw engagement at the actual online classes go up But it still was suboptimal because it still wasn't at a really, a level you'd want it to be. And then students again were self-studying at the back end in their study leave, uh, block study, uh, leave at the end. Again, suboptimal 'cause they don't have the same level of supports. What we want to do is have people s- going through the education program and we can see in real time where they're having difficulty so we can help. Yeah. Either the system can intervene to help or we can have a pastoral care element kick in and go, "We see, Sinead, you've really struggled with X, Y, and Z, and we can do that." So we wanted to get to a state where it took the best of everything that went before and make it the best. And then the other thing that was the science of learning, and it's there for anyone to check, the best form of education, it's, uh, is, is private… It's, it's scientifically proven for a long, long time, is private tutor.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Mm-hmm.
Ian Browne:Somebody who sits across the kitchen table from you and privately tutors you, 'cause they know on a one-to-one basis there's a pulse going back and forward in terms of, "I know, Sinead, you really didn't understand that."
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Yeah.
Ian Browne:Now, that's not gonna happen in a lecture hall theater setting because there's 200 people there or whatever and y- and that safe space is not created. But at, at that one-to-one level, and it is found, that's called, basically it's much better than, than say a big lecture theater. That's the two sigma, uh, problem, uh, with education in terms of if you want to get the two sigma better result of the best form of education is one-to-one teaching. But you can't… That's never been able to be solved at scale. So we wanted to get something with new technology using all the latest, uh, in tech and science of education to be able to solve that two sigma problem at scale. Which means that, like every single student should, number one, get an individual learning journey or pathway through their learning of a particular syllabus that's tailored completely to their own needs.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Yeah.
Ian Browne:So it goes at a speed that suits you, at a learning that suits you, and always make sure, the objective of what's trying to be created, is to ensure that that learner reaches 100% competence in all the learning objectives that's required.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Yeah.
Ian Browne:And you have to do that for everybody so that everyone gets their own individualized learning pathway that actually helps them get to the learning in the best way possible, the most efficient way for them. And in that, no two people learn the same. No people, two people are the same, nor should they be. So n- why should their education program- Yeah … be the same?"Oh, we've 1,500 people all taking FE, and they all get the exact same." No, no, it needs to be slightly different or whatever. It needs to be tailored up. So we've managed to do that through adaptive learning, and what that's doing is basically we can see at any one time as people progress through their learning journey, the system is updating itself every 30 seconds to understand what Sinead actually does or doesn't know, which is a mimicking on an IT level of that pulse between that personalized trainer across the piece. Now, what it's been found scientifically, and we're in the process of actually starting a massive, uh, global level research, academic research on, on the science of education from the data that we have in this, because we're the first major learning body in the world. Now, I didn't say accountancy body. You mightn't have noticed that. I said learning body. Any form of major learning worldwide, we're the first major body that has huge levels of learning data collected that will, and, and, and will ad- advance the science of education, of all forms of education. And we're, we're currently s- in the process of, uh, uh, getting acada- uh, very, very Sorry, one of the top global, uh, academic think tanks in the world to come in and help us with the analyzing of that data. Because what we're seeing is, is, is almost what will be seen in learning terms as a form of alchemy. Okay? Um, at the moment what we see is from our pilot and what we've done thus far, that we have people come in, the, the feedback of the students that have gone through the adaptive learning, they wish, "Why, why didn't I have this in all forms of learning?" Because once you see adaptive learning and you've been part of it, it's very hard to go to the traditional forms of learning that you've had up to that. Now, but you have to see it to believe it and all that. So our pe- our, our feedback from our students has been phenomenal, but the results that they're, they're getting off the back of that, their learning is being achieved in areas that they've, we've seen for 40 years the trends that are there. Long-term trends, which is another thing that, uh, uh, academic bodies would struggle with, is to have long-term trends, and that's one of the beautiful things of being a professional body that's over h- almost 140 years old. We have the trends, and we can see that, like, our trainees over back in the'70s struggled with these key things. Yeah. And they struggled in the '90s, and they struggled in the noughties, and they struggled in the '10s Guess what? When we did the pilot, we purposely picked a subject, finance, that is historically the lowest pass rate in our syllabi.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Mm-hmm.
Ian Browne:For whatever reason, I taught finance at Cap 1. Uh, no, sorry, I didn't teach it at Cap 1. I taught finance in college and for other qualifications. But I, um, I, I knew the Cap 1 syllabus really well, and I couldn't understand why people struggled with it. And we tried everything prior to going to adaptive learning to try solve that, and we solved it for probably… But what we managed to do was when people progressed through that and they suddenly were able to answer the questions that historically the students had struggled with. But not only that, they were answering them at speed. And actually, and we can do that'cause we have an online exam. We can see how long it takes somebody to answer a question. Yeah. We could see… So in- instead of leaving questions blank that historically just students really struggle with, students were answering, but they're answering at speed and they're answering correctly And that's what adaptive learning is supposed to do. It's supposed to get you to 100% competence across all the learning objectives in the most efficient and effective way that suits your needs. So think of it this way. You can do, you can get through your, on, on average, an average student gets through the learning in half the time, but they're twice as much learning achieved. And the type of learning that's achieved through the system is stickier. It lasts longer in your memory. Why? Because it starts to create neural pathways. Now you might say, "That sounds mad. You couldn't do that." The facts are here as simple as this. It sounds nuts until you actually go, the reason why it is, what is adaptive learning doing that's so amazing? Adaptive learning keeps a- asking you or probing you through your learning journey to find out, do you actually know this? Mm-hmm. So it's asking you little mini style exam questions all of the time to embed in the knowledge. And if you don't know it, it feeds you another one and gives you a little bit more of a voice of how do you do know it. And then once you know it, it moves you on. So what we found was, 'cause a lot of the things the students were getting caught up on was simple stuff. You're kinda going, "Why are they getting stuck on that simple stuff?" It's because sometimes it's the simple thing that catch people out.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Yeah.
Ian Browne:Because you're studying and you go, "Sure I know that. I don't need to worry about that again." Mm-hmm. And then, but when you get to the exam, you hadn't practiced it much 'cause that was the bit that you thought you knew.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Yeah.
Ian Browne:So you were leaving the, what we would call, the easy marks behind. Mm-hmm. So with adaptive learning, it's forcing you to do so. Instead of seeing something maybe four or five times before you did the exam, you've probably s- practiced that particular question type 40 or 50 times-
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Okay
Ian Browne:before you do the exam. So now can you see where the speed comes in? So think about you when you were- Yeah … learning how to drive your car and you were learning how to change gears.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Yeah.
Ian Browne:When you're first starting, you really have to look down and think about- Yeah … the change in the gears.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Then it's the muscle memory.
Ian Browne:It's the muscle memory. It's- So we're creating neural pathways of learning, and that's a whole other level of deep learning. Now, people say to me, "Oh, we should make, so why, why can't we go back to the classroom?" The problem is, if we go back to the classroom to the way the good old days were, and I gave you some of the reasons why. First of all, I as a lecturer, I used to lecture in some lecture theaters where I had a thousand students I didn't know who, which learning objectives each student was struggling with or didn't. They all used to come out in my classroom, and if they asked me a question, they asked me a question. The, the, the system we have now, we know where every single student is struggling, so we can create our revision days. Uh, our, our, our, our, our webinars are all designed around the things that students have actually really struggled with.'Cause we can identify from the analytics on the system, this is what the students are actually str- rather than what I think they might be struggling with. Yeah. So your revision days are tailored to you. But guess what? The system already does revision cards for you, but those revision cards are completely unique to you. So it knows what you don't know, and it knows if you've been away for a week, well, your knowledge has degraded by a week. But it also knows if you've been away for two weeks while it's busy season, then it's degraded further, so it c- it bring, your revision cards brings you back up to speed again. In a traditional setting, we can't do that. We can't get that level of data that we can actually give real true pastoral care to our trainees. And when we talk about true thought leadership or business leadership, like, the data that we've, we have now in terms of learning hopefully will be a, a thought leadership piece for the future of-
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:The future
Ian Browne:all form of learning.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:It's incredible to see, um, all the progression and evolution. I'm conscious of time. We've probably five to 10 minutes left, if even at that. I wanna get into our next big juicy update, which is modular enrollments. Ian, summarize that. What is happening? We've got three intakes in the year now? Yeah. Tell us more.
Ian Browne:Yeah, no, it's three intakes a year. Um, the research, our research said we, we, we ha- the, the market was changing quite considerably in terms of the way, uh, the profession was moving. So, like, the profession in general had a, a traditional busy season. We're busy all year round now. Uh, and also we're in multiple sectors and not just, say, for, uh, the, the professional accountancy services. So in terms of people studying in industry, they wanted to be just that little bit more flexibility to be able to on-ramp at different times during the year, and also to be able to spread resource allocation throughout the year. So it just allowed that little bit more flexibility and nuance to what was something that was designed to suit, uh, for, uh, the profession back maybe 20, 30 years ago. The profession's moved on to a new state now, so, and this, this will help allow for that.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Absolutely, and as you rightly say, students in all sectors, all different types of roles, which is brilliant now that they have this, this choice, this flexibility. Yep. In 60 seconds, a couple of sentences, what would you say to someone maybe looking at accounting as a career prospect and considering ACA? What would you say to them?
Ian Browne:I think if you want to leave yourself set up, and I always go back to the saying, like, uh, my son is eight. Uh, he was eight actually just the other day And if I wanted my son to do something in business, and he came to me in five, 10 years' time or whatever and said, "Daddy, I'm, I'm thinking of doing something, and I wanna do something for, in, in the business space," I'd say, "There pr- there isn't right now anywhere better to take on and than the, the discipline of studying to be an Irish chartered accountant right now." Um, and there's all sorts of other ways and pathways that we haven't talked about today that will allow much more accessibility in and in different ways. But if I want my son to have the best potential of being able to deal with whatever things come in the future,'cause we can't predict accurately beyond a certain time horizon. But if you want, if I want my son to have the best skills to make sure that he has a vibrant, exciting, dynamic career ahead of him, there's only one place to go, and that's Chartered Accountants Ireland and to study the ACA qualification. And that I'll ac- I can, you can take that to the bank.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:And you can mic drop on that. Ian, thank you so much for joining me. What a conversation.
Ian Browne:Thank you.
Sinead Fox-Hamilton:Uh, there was so much more we could get into, but time, it doesn't allow us, and I think we've hit the nail on the head with all those key messages today. So thank you so much. Folks, you've heard it here. So much going on within the profession, so much change, the evolution journey. It has been amazing to walk through it with Ian today. It's an exciting time to consider accountant. If you want more information, do check out our website, becomeacharteredaccountant.com. And if you wanna hear more conversations like this, check us out on Spotify or on the Chartered Accountants Ireland YouTube page. And thank you so much for tuning in, and until next time, folks, bye for now.