Assessment of the Jordanian Certified Public Accountant JCPA Examination in Comparison to the International Accounting Education Standards and the Best International Practices

This study aims to highlight the experiences of Jordanian Certified Public Accountant (JCPA) exam that started with the establishment of the Legal Accounting Profession organisation law in June 2006. This study is considered the first study in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan that looks at the evaluation of the Jordanian Chartered Public Accountant exam, in comparison to the requirements of international accounting education standards. Furthermore, this study focuses on the sixth standard IES6 that relates to the assessment of professional accountants and that is based on the best practices in professional accounting examinations in the world. This current study has adopted the method of distribution of questionnaires to gather information from those who participated in taking the exam, with the group of those who were successful, and others that were not so lucky. The accounting practice analysis was based on the standards, the best accounting practices, and the results of the interviews, which when were completed produced a number of recommendations. The recommendations or results found, push for the further development of the JCPA exam and improves the quality of the exam, to advance to the universal level of professional examinations. Of the most important recommendations is to work on increasing the number of times the exam is held annually, which can be done easily if the exam becomes computer based. It’s also important to develop specific firm dates for the JCPA exam or to announce the dates at the beginning of each year, and not to announce the exam time two months prior to the exam as it is currently. Finally, the announcement and clarification of specific percentages given to specific material included in the exam such as dedicating 25% of the examination to International Auditing Standards and so on.