Visual impairment no hurdle for CA aspirant
Hard work bore fruit for Mahesh, a visually-impaired student, who cleared the Common Proficiency Test (CPT) last year in pursuit of his CA dream
M.Mahesh Babu
Accountancy and Math always fascinated M. Mahesh Babu. There was seldom a penny in his pocket, but calculating big money was his dream and so, naturally he nurtured ambitions to be a chartered accountant.
But his visual impairment proved to be another challenge and compounding the problems were remarks from every corner on how chartered accountancy is deemed a tough nut to crack. However, Mahesh, who is visually-impaired, did not budge from his ambition. Hard work bore fruit and Mahesh cleared the first stage to his CA dream by passing the Common Proficiency Test (CPT) last year.
To become a chartered accountant, one has to clear three stages, CPT being the first, followed by Integrated Professional Competence Course (IPCC) and ultimately the CA final examination.
Son of a daily wage labourer, the road, expectedly, was thorny for Mahesh.
But, for once his visual impairment proved to be a blessing in disguise. Being visually-impaired Mahesh was free to study unlike his siblings who had to dropout after 10 {+t} {+h} class.
His sister, like their illiterate housewife-mother, never went to school.
Luckily for Mahesh, when even reputed educational institutes shun visually-impaired students, a modest coaching academy in SR Nagar, RK Institute for CA/ICWA came to his rescue. Not only did the institute admit Mahesh but also waived the fee for him. The institute's managing director Rama Krishna even went a step ahead and presented Rama Krishna with a digital recorder so that he could record the classes and listen in his free time.
Travel consumed two hours of Mahesh's time everyday. After reaching home, he would listen to that day's classes over the recorder his teacher gifted him and learn the lessons. “Once I reached home, I studied that day's lessons. Sometimes it was four hours and sometimes six hours,” he says. He would mug up all laws and formulas.
“In general it is very easy to teach visually-impaired students. They have high concentration ability and do not get distracted easily,” says Rama Krishna. He has also coached four other visually-impaired students -- E. Diksheeth, J. Raja Shekar, Teja and Shekar, all from Devnar School for the Blind. “The only difficulty with visually-impaired students is to teach them how to use tables as there are no Braille scripts,” says Mr. Rama Krishna.
He identifies law consultancy, tax consultancy, company consultancy and financial services as areas where the visually-impaired could excel as chartered accountants.
YOGENDRA KALAVALAPALLI
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