Mercy Yan:
Hi Mary,
Thank you for your questions. In Canada, the UEC program was implemented a number of years ago. We started with a course-by-course accredited system and moved to a program-by-program accredited system due to administrative simplicity and ease of control. There are many advantages of partnering and collaborating with a well-recognized university/college in the delivery of the required education such as:
· University/college has more employed resources dedicated to delivering the educational materials and instructions.
· University/college has a network with a broader group of employers representing many different industries.
· University/college is the first point of contact for many young talents to seek for higher education.
Broadening employment opportunities is one of the fundamental reasons for many young people to seek higher education. So it is necessary for any educational bodies to consider the employment outlook for their educational programs. Our profession has been dominating the insurance industry in the past. Unfortunately with globalization, the industry in North America, especially in Canada, has undergone consolidation in order to compete on a global scale. With consolidation, the employment opportunities for actuaries have diminished substantially, which led to membership shrinkage. This is inevitable when our profession is highly reliant on one industry rather than multiple industries. Thus, in order to maintain our influence and relevance in society, our profession needs to expand into other industry sectors to be sustainable in the long run.
The question would then become how we could effectively break into other industry sectors. This will require us to modernize our exam system to meet skill requirements in other industry sectors. Strategic decisions would be required to select the sector(s) that our current skill set could be easily accepted and value-added. I believe that the current SOA Board has selected data management (information-technology) as the top area for expansion based on the latest focus on data scientists.
Once the sector(s) is/are selected, the next question is how to complement our educational system to attract the new talents and also enhance our actuarial skills to meet the skill requirements of the new targeted industries. The decision to add a UEC system to the existing path is probably a good strategy to expand our employment opportunities for our members. I view this addition as an expansion of our career path for future actuaries. The skill requirements for this new group of actuaries could be different from our traditional examination group. SOA will need to establish a new benchmark/standard in measuring “quality” of this new group. Given the current state of our profession and the external environment, I am in principle supportive of the UEC initiative, but the success of this new venture will rely heavily on our implementation process and brand recognition.
You are welcome to share my reply with the broader community. Thank you!