Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) says it is poised to see accounting profession becoming the dream of more students early in life.

The 23rd Chairman, Ibadan and District Society of ICAN, Dr Temitope Babajide, stated this during a courtesy visit to the Ibadan Zonal Office of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Wednesday.

Babajide, who was accompanied by two past chairmen of the institute and other principal officers, explained that the body hoped to achieve the goal via its ‘Catch Them Young’ (CTY) initiative.

She underscored the need to create the drive for more awareness for the profession right from the Junior Secondary School (JSS) level to the tertiary institutions.

According to her, science classes in various schools have more students due to the high awareness of science-based professions.

“The CTY programme of the institute entails going to secondary schools and tertiary institutions to talk to the students about the choice of career and making accounting profession attractive to the young ones.

“Presently, what subsists at most of these schools is that there are very low numbers of students at commercial classes, while we have the sciences with a large number of students.

“The arts classes may not be as large as the science classes, but they are larger than the commercial classes.

“We are embarking on the CTY program to let students know the opportunities and benefits accrued to accountants, one of which is that accountants can work anywhere.

“There’s no company or organization that does not have accounts department to take care of their income and expenditure,” she said.

Babajide expressed the possibility of collaborating with media in spreading the goals of the CTY program and in the area of training of members of staff on financial and management programs.

In his response, the Zonal Manager, NAN Ibadan Zonal Office, Mr Olawale Alabi, commended the institute for deeming it fit to visit the agency, which he described as Africa’s largest news hub.

Alabi expressed the agency’s readiness to collaborate with the institute toward promoting its activities, especially its initiative on catching the younger generation into the profession.

According to him, the agency is constantly evolving new trends in journalism to serve its subscribers with credible and trusted news items.

“When you talk to the media, you have talked to all; that is one of our slogans. We are always the first with the news in the sense of real content,” he said.

Alabi lamented the ills brought on the journalism profession by bloggers, who for selfish reasons, make use of the social media to spread unverified information to the public.

“What the social media offer is not regulated. They also lack what we call gatekeeping in journalism.

“There is no editor to check and verify what they publish on the social media,” he said.

The zonal manager, however, said that with the credibility the media has built over the years, its copies are well sought after by its subscribers across the globe. (NAN)