HOW TO BECOME A CS (COMPANY SECRETARY)!

A CAREER GUIDE ON CS COURSE

The Company Secretary is the one of the top choices for students who look forward to a professional career in the corporate field. Especially the students having commerce background and pursuing other professional courses like CA or CMA feel its importance to have a side of legal knowledge as well. Be it employment or in practice, the exposure of CS in corporate and other laws is ever growing and the new horizons demand more from them.

When it comes to position of a CS in a company, he is one of the principal officer who acts as conscience seeker of the company. A CS is regarded as the in-house legal advisor of the company. However most of the companies do not engage CS with secretarial compliances alone, it mostly comes with part of finance, taxation or legal to be tagged along.

The Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) is the professional body to develop and regulate the profession of Company Secretaries. As ICSI envisions to be a global leader in promoting Good Corporate Governance and to develop high caliber professionals facilitating good Corporate Governance, the course curriculum has been designed in such a way that compliance and governance are dealt in the subjects predominantly. The wide range of career opportunities that CS course is capable of making you the Corporate Supernova, again CS it is.

In this note, we have tried to collate all general information relation to CS course, with regard to levels, admission, curriculum, exams and training etc. To be able to professionally practice Company Secretary ship, an individual has to complete three levels of training and examination, set by the ICSI. Lets’ start with HOW TO BECOME A CS;

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STAGES OF COMPANY SECRETARY – CS EXAM LEVELS

The course structure of CS has undergone significant change in recent times especially the amendment in Feb 2020 brought in quite a number of changes, one such change is the introduction of CSEET and dispensation of Foundation Programme.

• Currently, the CS course consists of 3 stages, namely;
• CSEET (CS Executive Entrance Test)
• CS Executive Programme
• CS Professional Programme

CSEET has replaced the Foundation Programme completely, wherein the admission to Foundation Programme has been discontinued. Instead, the CSEET shall be the entry point of CS Course.

Note: This makes every aspiring candidate to go through to entrance test in order to get registered in the Executive programme. Candidates, who have completed 12th standard, will be eligible to take ICSI CSEET exam. The earlier practice of granting relaxation to graduate and post graduate to undergo foundation and to register as direct entry to executive programme has been discontinued.

Exception to CSEET is made available only for the below category:

• Students who have passed CS Foundation Programme
• Students who have passed the Final Course of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India
• Students who have passed the Final Course of The Institute of Cost Accountants of India

CS EXAMS & CS ADMISSION

Be it any stage of the course, the admissions are open throughout the year. But it is governed by the cut-off dates for appearing in the exams. Given below is the granulated form of the cut-off that helps the student to ascertain their eligibility based on their registrations on or before cut-off date.

CS EXAMS for CSEET:

CS EXAMS for CS Executive \ CS Professional Programme

COMPANY SECRETARY – CS TRAINING:

The new training structure and development programme finally brings in an uniform training structure and has removed the ambiguity that existed earlier. The previous structure had different training period based on levels of completion of examination (For instance, 1 year after passing Professional Programme, 2 years after passing Executive Programme and Three years on registration but not passed Executive Programme).

The new structure has simplified all this ambiguous applicability criteria and defined a simple structure where the student shall be required to complete the below training and development programme:

– Executive Development Programme (EDP) for one month duration afterpassing of Executive Programme examination;

– Practical training for twenty one months after completion of ExecutiveDevelopment Programme on whole time basis during normal working hours,-

• in a company having a company secretary in whole timeemployment.
• under a Company Secretary in whole-time practice fulfilling suchcriteria as may be determined by the ICSI.
• in any other body corporate or institution or organisation or entity fulfilling such criteria as may be determined by the ICSI;.

– After passing the Professional Programme Examination, a Corporate Leadership Development Programme (CLDP) for not less than thirty days but not exceeding sixty days as may be determined by the Institute.

Exemption:

A student who claims to have acquired practical knowledge and skills equivalent to Executive Development Programme and Practical training may make an application for exemption from undergoing the same in accordance with the criteria. The ICSI may, grant full or partial exemption or conditional exemption or reject the same after considering the application.

CS SYLLABUS & CURRICULUM

– CS Executive Entrance Test (CSEET)

CSEET shall be an online Computer-based Test. It comprises of MCQs and Viva Voce. The duration of CSEET shall be 135 minutes (120 Minutes for MCQ test and 15 minutes for Viva Voce). This aims at having entrance test at par with the other professions such as medical, engineering etc. CSEET shall be conducted 4 times in year in months of May, July, November and January. CSEET curriculum includes:

– Computer Based Test of 120 Minutes consisting of four parts 50 marks each viz.

• Business Communication;
• Legal Aptitude & Logical Reasoning
• Economic and Business Environment &
• Current Affairs; and

– Viva Voce of 15 Minutes on “Presentation and Communication Skills”

Students are require to score an aggregate of 50% and minimum 40% marks in each subject will be the qualifying criteria for CSEET. The great relief to students is that there will be NO Negative Marking.

CS EXECUTIVE PROGRAMME

The Executive Programme comprises of 8 subjects under 2 modules as tabulated below.

CS PROFESSIONAL PROGRAMME

The Professional Programme comprises of 9 subjects under 3 modules as tabulated below.

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