A number of issues involving student recruitment have been brought to our attention. These include the following scenarios: 

• Students defaulting on their written acceptances of training contract offers in order to accept alternative offers;
• Students currently under formal training contract presenting for interviews and accepting offers of traineeship from alternative training firms without having firstly secured the express permission to transfer for the outstanding period of their training contract.
• Students leaving training contracts to pursue their studies with other firms under the flexible option route.

Students and recognised training firms/organisations are reminded of the protocol involved in the recruitment of students who fall into any of these categories listed below:

• Acceptance of a training contract offer:

  The Institute takes an extremely serious view of students who renege on a written commitment of training contract. While we realise that students are not in a position to sign the legal training contracts prior to graduation, nonetheless, any student who has accepted a written offer of contract must not pursue or accept any subsequent alternative propositions.

• Transfer of an active training contract:

  Students who are under training contract with an authorised training firm must secure permission in writing from their current employer to transfer the balance of the contract to an alternative training firm before applying to, or interviewing with, any alternative employer.  This written permission should be requested by any interviewing firm.

• Transferring from training contract to the flexible route:

  Students who terminate their training contract in order to pursue their studies under the flexible route will be required to provide Chartered Accountants Ireland with written permission to do so from their original training firm.

As the transfer of a training contract should only occur in exceptional circumstances you should contact Chartered Accountants Ireland to secure the forms to facilitate the process.  Please feel free to contact the admissions team at studentqueries@charteredaccountants.ie or 01 523 3929 to request these forms or discuss any aspect of the termination or transfer of contract.

Agreement regarding the refund of educational expenses should be reached between the firm and the student before submission of any documentation to Chartered Accountants Ireland. 

Please ensure that you comply with the protocol as failure to do so will be deemed by the Institute to be partaking in unprofessional and improper behaviour contrary to our regulations.