IFoA Mathematics

Probably. Feel free to ask the ifoa. You seem like a new student. Perhaps test out their customer service before you join... might just change your mind...

 

It's rather ironic given the long-term stats based work actuaries do for the professional body to not be disclosing basic statistics such that people can make an informed choice whether to pursue this career in the long term.

 

To be fair they have already disclosed their qualification times statistics several times. Sometimes it’s 3 years. Sometimes, 4. A couple of times I’ve seen 3-6 years. In private letters I’ve seen 7 to 8 years. If you look at their membership statistics, you can see that 1/3 of 36-40 year olds are not qualified, so make of that what you will. They have got absolutely no clue what they are doing. Do you think they even know that people drop out of their profession? The membership number is going up due to all the new Indian and Chinese members so that’s alright isn’t it?

 

I was just comparing stats published by IFoA in their members report 2012/13 and annual report 2017/2018.

• Total members up from 25,548 to over 31,000. UK members up from 14,741 to 16,253.
• Total student members up from 13,047 to over 16,000 but UK student members declined from 5,950 to 5,618.
• Of total members, second biggest group based in India, and in 2017/18 there are 6,064 and 5,854 of them are student members.
• In the 2012/13 members report, it showed in 2011-13 that number of Fellows aged 21-26 were only around 30 compared to student membership around 4,000.
• Aged 26-30 around 4,250 students to 1250 Fellows. 31-35 2400 Fellows to 1250 students.
  
• In the 2016 membership report, for ages up to 26 there were only 28 Fellows and 5391 students

These figures tell me that those who graduate at 21/22 and become Fellows by 26 are incredibly rare. Also I think it can be argued that there is a huge drop out rate going on mid 20s to mid 30s.

 

Indeed. For these people who deserve respect for their perseverance, what have IFoA done? They've imposed PPD on them which renders void their work experience pre-Sept 2017. The right thing to do would be to credit their past work experience in PPD from the start, but no. Also some will be caught in the CT exam being rendered worthless in new curriculum situation. These complaints have been put to IFoA but completely ignored; they won't even admit who's idea it was for work-based skills exemption to be cancelled.

 

How do you think the quality of the IFoA's customer service impacts the decision about whether to become an actuary? Once qualified, the interaction (excluding working parties etc.) with the Institute is not much more than CPD is it? Apart from the Life conference of course! (b)

 

I see your point. But I suppose if they (36-40 yo) have not qualified already, then all they need to do is record the 3 PPD credits per year for the rest of their career. This isn't too demanding is it?

 

Any PPD recorded as 'career break' from Sept 2017 won't count, so qualification time gets delayed even though these people have substantial actuarial work experience pre Sept 2017 that IFoA no longer recognise. Clearly unfair.

 

I agree, that is unfair. I guess my point was more around the fact that students age 36-40 who have not qualified may not be looking to qualify and so their only requirement from PPD is to record 3 credits per year. The fact that their experience pre-September 2017 will no longer be recognised may not bother them too much.

But I agree it is still unfair to have worked for 20 years and be told that on paper you don't have 20 years of experience. This, of course, is in the IFoA's point of view...

 

That’s very short sited of you. What about when they open the floodgates and devalue your qualification... oh that happened already!

 

Just sat the CT5 exam in NTU, and if I don't get the exemption (fair chance of that happening) then I get to sit CM1 as well, even though I passed CT1.

 

Oh sorry. When you said 'customer service' I thought you meant how you physically get in touch with the institute and rectify any problems. The issue you've stated is about what the institute does in general, isn't it?

Of course, if they're terrible at answering the phone about, for example PPD, then they have bad customer service. But changing exams which make things unfair for students i would describe as something different.

 

I hope you pass. You are not alone. We will see how many people fail from the pass lists

I thought you said someone from the ifoa said that people at university will get longer to pass their exams?

 

Sorry I’m not following. What are you on about?

 

Nevermind. What you're on about has nothing to do with ifoa's customer service .

 

That is correct. But should you not get the exemptions then... you pretty much must try again, but in the iFoA's new syllabus. And generally speaking you don't get a second chance at university modules even for the purposes of retrying for an exemption.

 

For this botched roll-out, you can't really separate the customer service from the policy, since no clear answers are given because IFoA don't want to admit any group will be disadvantaged by it. The new curriculum & PPD do put significant numbers of current students at a disadvantage, which is not in accordance with what CEO said in annual report or the various promises on IFoA website.

 

But at university you don’t have to hold down a full time job and study at the same time. The pass rates for the university exams are generally higher than the ifoa pass rates. There’s plenty of evidence you’re better off at university and then the Ifoa gives university students more time too... why one rule for university students and another for others?

 

So what has it got to do with then? Please enlighten me

 

Mr Infinity, do you have an update for us on how many people may be adversely affected in light of tonight's CT pass rates? We like numbers, us actuaries. Mr Cribb promised zero. Let's do some actuary. I am guessing the answer is "thousands".

 

Sorry forgot to reply. 5,067 students seem to have failed the affected CT exams. Over a 1,000 just on CT4. A lot of people probably didn’t even bother to sit the exams. It’s hard to work out what proportion still have one half of the exams but not the other and the IFOA refuse to disclose, however it’s clear from the failures of CT3 and CT8, which turn into double exams, that around 1,000 students (perhaps some small double counting here) will have extra exams, exam hours, study time and increased time to qualification just because of these two exams. So from the 4,000 students left, perhaps half are affected by only having one CT exam but not the other. So that gets us up to 3,000 students. I think there are another 3,000 students who are “inactive” so some proportion would also be affected. I’d estimate around 4,000 students have to take one extra exam at least. That’s a quarter of students and probably half of those just on the CT subjects. Does anyone have any different view?