Thusitha Amuwala Dewage

As a Chartered Accountant, I have conducted many educational and training sessions to the students who were doing their articles at my previous practicing firms in relating to accounting, auditing, taxations, payroll and company secretarial practices. Those sessions were conducted in house and more prominence were given to practical aspects before the theory was explained. Moreover, giving a bird eye view of the subject matter was one of my approaches in teaching.

For an instance, before discussing the components of financial statements, I used to explain how the financial statements are generated representing financial performance and financial position of an organisation, starting from source documents (Bills, invoices, GRNs and payment vouchers, etc) to general ledger accounts via the journals, till they are transferred to trial balance manually or through an accounting system automatically. I had the opportunity to share the actual supporting documents of the client's (Bills, journals, primary ledger accounts) subjected to their independence requirements relating to confidentiality.

Further, an independent auditor's report of a limited liability company was discussed to show the basic characteristics (Auditor's name, place of signature, addressee, and purpose etc) before I start teaching the auditing standard relating to the auditor's opinion.

I trust that students prefer examples and practical experience more to theoretical literature so that they can dig the next level by their own once they gain general idea about a lesson. I also trust that my ability to understand and assess every student separately is paramount as we all have different levels of perceptions.