SBA revises current curriculum for freshmen

The School of Business and Accountancy (SBA) has revised the curricula for the incoming First Year students this school year 2020-2021, for both the Accountancy and Business Management departments.

“Every year we are consulting with the Program Advisory Council. These are your prospective employers, and we are asking them what do they expect our graduates to have,” Dr. Ma. Lina T. Ramoneda, Dean of the SBA stated when asked regarding the purpose of this new syllabus. “If there is an urgent need to address their concerns, then new curricula will be prepared so that the next batch of graduates will more or less conform to the needs of the industry.”

Dr. Ma. Cristina T. Naguit, Program Chairperson of the Management Department, also said that the unique thing about this new curriculum is that all courses across SBA have the same subjects for the First Year so that if the students want to shift their degree program during Second Year, there will be no problems regarding the bridging subjects that they will have to take.

With the execution of the new education curriculum, SBA has undergone several changes when it comes to the course offerings, subjects, length of time to finish a course, among others.

For the Accountancy department, BS Internal Auditing (BSIA) and BS Management Accounting (BSMA) will now be offered. “We wanted to widen the offerings because these are also the demands of the different accounting firms,” Ms. Sandra S. Brucal, Chair of the Accountancy Program, explained. “Hindi lang naman CPA Board Exam ang available para sa mga estudyante. We have Certification for Management Accounting para sa mga gustong maging CMA and Certification for Internal Audit para maging CIA.”

With this new curriculum, the ladderized program for the Accountancy department will also be implemented again. Now with just three and a half academic years and three summer classes, students will be able to graduate in either BSMA or BSIA. Should they wish to pursue BS Accountancy, they may also complete it within another academic year, thereby allowing them to have a double degree within just four and a half years.

There were no subjects omitted to permit graduation in a shorter period. Instead, the three summer classes —two with nine units and one with six units—will be in lieu of that one semester that should be taken originally. In fact, the Management Accounting subject was also added to the new curriculum to align with the Certified Public Accountant Licensure Examination (CPALE) and  Intermediate Accounting 1 was expanded to six units instead of three.

For the Management Department, Legal Management will be offered again as a returning course due to student demand. The said department will now be offering five degree programs, including Business Management, Marketing Management, Human Resource Management, and Financial Management, all of which already exist.

For the incoming second or third year students who wish to shift to Legal Management this year, Dr. Naguit said that they may do so, provided that they will comply with the requirements such as taking extra subjects which they were not able to take before.

The new education curricula for freshmen students of SBA are already finalized by the administration and content noted by the Commission on Higher Education Regional Office III (CHEDRO 3).

LAYOUT BY: Laiza Simeoune B. Sanchez

PHOTO SOURCE(S): hau.edu.ph