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Some information for Actuarial Science students at the University of Manchester re IFoA's curriculum review

30 July 2017: exemption mappings

You can find a mapping from old exemptions to new exemptions for our BSc and MSc programmes here.

4 June 2016: meeting with the NWAS

As most of you will have heard, a few weeks ago some of us (in particular a group of students and myself) have attended a meeting organised by the North West Actuarial Society concerning the curriculum review the IFoA (Institute and Faculty of Actuaries) is currently undertaking. The idea of this webpage is to inform you about these reforms. The page will be updated as new information becomes available.

It is good to be aware that these reforms are currently going through a long cycle of consultation and approval (or suggestions for improvement) by all stakeholders (manager speak ftw), which includes student representatives and relevant universities.

The meeting we attended was part of a series of meetings throughout the UK, to inform the general actuarial public about the reforms for the first time. Further progress will be made throughout this year, and I intend to update this page as substantial new information becomes available.

Below you find the main points that were communicated during this meeting. You can also find the slides that were used during the presentation here.

Here is some background information if you are not entirely up to speed. The route to becoming a fully qualified actuary (i.e. a Fellow of the IFoA) involves several stages of passing exams and obtaining work based skills -- more information can be found here. The first of these is called the `Core Technical' stage and involves 9 modules/exams, aptly named CT1, CT2, ..., CT9. Our BSc Actuarial Science and Mathematics programme offers exemptions for CT1, CT2, ..., CT7 (subject to satisfactory performance) and our MSc Actuarial Science programme offers exemptions for CT3, CT4, CT6 and CT8 (subject to satisfactory performance). Here `exemption' means what you guess it does: if you sign up as a student member with the IFoA then any exemption you hold will be translated into `exam passed' for the relevant module.

Main points from the NWAS meeting, focussing on the `Core Technical' stage as that is most relevant for us:

  1. The content of the `Core Technical' component as a whole (i.e. the modules CT1, CT2, ..., CT9) will remain largely unchanged, some current topics will receive less attention/be removed and a few new topics will be added. A significant change is that all that material will be reorganised into new (fewer) modules (see 2.) and that the examination will change for some modules (see 3.).
  2. These new modules look as follows (the names may change throughout the process):
    • CS1 Statistical Theory and Applications 1: most of CT3 and some of CT6
    • CS2 Statistical Theory and Applications 2: most of CT4 and CT6
    • CM1 Modelling 1: most of CT1 and CT5 and a small part of CT4
    • CM2 Modelling 2: CT8 and small parts of CT1 and CT6.
    • Core Business Subjects (CB1, CB2, CB3): the economics content of the `Core Technical' part, i.e. CT2 and CT7, plus in CB3 some new content that was previously part of the `Core Applications' component.
  3. The examination for the new modules CS1, CS2, CM1 and CM2 will consist of a written exam plus (and that is new) a computer based exam involving R or Excel.
  4. The IFoA organises two exam periods per year for their student members, one in April and one in September. The plan is that per April 2019 the transition from the `old' CTx exams to the `new' CSx/CMx/CBx exams will be made, i.e. up until September 2018 the IFoA will continue to offer (only) exams in the `old' CTx modules, and from April 2019 onwards (only) exams in the `new' CSx/CMx/CBx modules will be offered.
  5. What does this mean for students who have graduated/will graduate from University and have obtained one or more CTx exemptions? This is probably the most burning question if you are reading this page. The answer is that your exemptions will be automatically translated to the new situation. Any student member from the IFoA (of which you would be one when you sign up with them at some point after your graduation) that has passed one or more of the CTx exams (either by obtaining an exemption from us or by actually sitting and passing the relevant IFoA exam) will have their passed CTx exams translated into passed exams of the corresponding new CSx/CMx/CBx modules. You can find a mapping from old exemptions to new exemptions for our BSc and MSc programmes here.
If you have any remaining questions you can of course always get in touch with Jon Ferns, Ronnie Loeffen or myself (though of course we also only know what has currently been communicated by the IFoA).