Seventeen academics from the Commerce and Accounting Department of the Faculty of Business and Finance (FBF) organised the UTAR Inter-School Accounting Challenge Competition 2023 (ISACC2023) from 10 April 2023 to 9 May 2023 at UTAR Kampar Campus. A total of 11 teams comprising Form 4 and Form 5 students from eight Kinta Selatan district schools joined the competition. Each team consisted of three students and one mentor.

The competition, which was an initiative taken by FBF to promote the UTAR Accounting programme to the schools in the Kinta Selatan district, aimed to strengthen students’ knowledge in accounting; expose students to the current accounting issues, and nurture students’ soft skills, time management and critical thinking by providing a platform for them to demonstrate their knowledge via video presentation.

UTAR ISACC2023 incorporated two parts of assessments; part 1 was a case study challenge where students were required to present their answers in a recorded video together with their presentation slides. The second part of the assessment was conducted physically at UTAR. It involved answering 50 multiple-choice questions (MCQ) individually. The scores from Part 1 and Part 2 were then combined to obtain the winners.

The competition ended with a special closing ceremony which was inaugurated by Kinta Selatan District Education Officer Dr Mior Hamdan Bin Hj Ghazali, ACM accompanied by FBF Head of Department of Commerce and Accountancy Sonia Johanthan. The winners were announced as follows:

• 1st Place (RM600 cash prize): SMK Idris Shah, Gopeng.
• 2nd Place (RM400 cash prize): SMK Methodist (ACS), Kampar.
• 3rd Place (RM200 cash prize): SMJK Pei Yuan, Kampar.
• Best Presenter Award: Nur Athirah Amani Binti Hasrudin from SMK Dato’ Bendahara C.M. Yusuf

 All participants were rewarded with certificates and vouchers as a token of appreciation.