Accountants in Bermuda who are members of the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada (CGA-Canada) can now participate in a specialised online Executive MBA programme thanks to an alliance with the Centre for Innovative Management at Athabasca University (AU).

Lyle Handfield, Vice-President of Corporate and Professional Affairs for CGA-Canada, says the new strategic alliance with AU will provide CGAs an outstanding opportunity to continue their education.

Mr. Handfield said the MBA would feature specialities in Corporate Finance and Information Technology Management (ITM) which had been requested by CGA members.

Dr. Peter Carr, Acting Director for AU's Centre for Innovative Management, says the collaboration with CGA-Canada is further evidence that AU is committed to meeting the knowledge requirements of today's professionals in the new economy.

He said that the alliance between the CGAs and Canada's leading Executive MBA school will provide Canada's accountants with the education they need to move up the corporate ladder and their online format meant their high-quality graduate level education would be available to them at anytime anywhere in the world."

AU is customising the specialised Online MBA courses to enhance accounting and financial knowledge with an in-depth examination of the key tasks of management - managing strategy, information, people, resources, markets and operations.

Core courses in the ITM stream include IT Strategy, Human Factors in IT and Electronic Commerce.

The programme was specifically designed to acknowledge the CGAs' educational background and students will get full credit for their work experience and CGA designation.

The programme is structured as a series of phases, each building on the work completed in the previous phase and CGAs may pursue concentrations in either Corporate Finance or Information Technology Management during phases two and three.

Students will normally complete the MBA programme in two and one-half to three years and regulations state that students must complete the programme within six years.

A student must successfully complete one course or comprehensive examination in any 12 month period to maintain active status in the programme.

There are over 40 local accounting firms but president of the Certified General Accountants Association of Bermuda - CGA-Canada's sister association - Pamela Greyson of HLN Enterprises could not be reached for comment yesterday.

However, Communications Advisor for CGA - Canada Taylor Ashley said on Friday that even though the programme was launched the day before, they had received a tremendous response from interested accountants all over the world.

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On the Net:

www.cgacanada.org