I'd like to share some information about Open University accounting courses. These can be studied for free, with fees covered by the Scottish Awards Agency Scotland (part time grants) and can earn you exemptions with professional bookkeeping and accounting bodies such as IAB, AAT, ACCA, and CIMA. The courses can also form part of a business management (accounting) degree from the Open University (or a diploma if you don't feel like studying for that long), and are a mix of continuous assessment and end of course examination. Course materials are provided, and tutor support.
When I did my Open Uni studies, the exemptions from AAT were free, alas not now (last time I checked the exemption fee was about the same as the fee for sitting an AAT exam).
Check the first thread in this section of the forum for other free course information, this new info. has been added to a new thread only because these courses are not free to everyone. If you would like to share any free course information, please add it to the other thread.
I'd just like to add that the above part time fee grant is available to career changers who already have a degree from a university.
Although the grant award for full-time study at university from the Student Awards Agency for Scotland is usually only available to students once, the part time fee grant is still available after this.
Its something that I found really helpful when changing career from my degree subject, and it means you can achieve another degree if you want to. Having studied at more than one university during an undergraduate degree and postgrad., I can thoroughly recommend the Open University for part time study (for a variety of subjects - I've tried a number of their courses).
thanks for sharing. Nice to see the OU have now put all of the modules back into the qualification. For a while they took one of them out... Think that it was the accounting theory one which I regard as one of the most important. Obviosuly thaey have now woerkn up and smelt the coffee on that one.
I did this myself back in 2003 as a cussion between corporate and starting ACCA.
I would HIGHLY recomend that if anyone takes this route that they do not take any of the exemptions from higher body exams as I was with a group of people the bulk of whom passed, many like mself went on to do ACCA... I was the only one to get past ACCA paper 4 (then 2.1) as the others took exemptions but Idid the exams as, sick mind that I have, was thinking is the exemption is just a guaranteed pass and you have to pay for the exam anyway without turning up where's the fun in that. Nope, I'll sit them.
Lucky I did as a lot of passing ACCA is in timing and reading between the lines as they have a question style where you are lookingn for what isn't in the question.
Just as an example they will be asking about the sale of a business. At ACCA you should be thinking beyond the nuts and bolts to determin whether the owner of the business is the value of it. Do they come with the business? Are they locked in? What is the value with them taken out of the equation? What are the indications that they may not stay with the business.
Very little if any of that will be on the paper and thats a step movement away from the OU which is more closely aligned to AAT questions.
As an aside the B124 is an excellent self contained introduction to bookkeeping that really lays great foundations for a career in accountancy.
Good luck,
All the best,
Shaun. (Now FCCA, MSc. but it all started with this OU course!)
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Thanks Shaun - that's really useful. I've no experience of ACCA examinations myself yet, just AAT, and that's interesting to hear about the difference in the questions. Also its great to see where that first OU course took you!
