What do I think of CAs?

I am not a CA.

I did not study at an IIT, I am not even an engineer.

?I did not go an IIM, I am not even an MBA.

Which is how I can muster up the courage to say that if there is an island of educational excellence in India it is the CA Institute.?More so than even the IIMs.

World over, India is known for the great crop of students that come out of the IITs and the IIMs. The world needs to know about the great CAs we produce.??

To appreciate why I am putting ICAI above the IIMs, one needs to ask a very basic question. What is a good education? What should a good education deliver?

Over at the IITs and the IIMs, they take in only the best and then work on making them better. But at the ICAI, anybody can get in so long as certain minimum standards are met. But one has to go through the grind to graduate with a degree.?Yes, it is not easy , one has to work hard for it. But anybody can get in, unlike the situation that obtains in an IIT or an IIM.?

At an IIT or an IIM, they take an uncut diamond and turn it into a sparkling one. Over at ICAI, they provide the opportunity to shine even to students who may not have had a great academic run. While at the IIMs, the entrance exam is meant to keep weaklings out, the ICAI uses the exam only to keep the non serious out by keeping the entry?qualification sufficiently low.

But that in no way affects the rigour of the grind they put their students through. Becoming a CA is tough, very tough. Everybody has a fair chance to get in, even those with a poor academic record in the past.?They give you a second chance.?That is what makes ICAI a great institution and socially relevant. Because, in my view, the quality of an educational system is not about how many good people they take and make them better. But how many people they take and make them better.

From the time I founded IRIS, the company of which I am the CEO, I have interviewed hundreds of job seekers from all sorts of backgrounds. The CAs, I have discovered, are in a league of their own, above everyone else.??

Perhaps it is high time they learned to communicate this better.

The author is the Founder & CEO of IRIS Business Services Limited, a global Regtech listed on the BSE, which employs a number of CAs and is looking for many more. Twitter: @iris_swami?