TAKING ON A JOB with management responsibilities often demands a good working knowledge of financial matters, and this can be a problem for those who come to management positions without the benefit of a business background.

To fill this gap, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) has developed a part-time certified diploma in accounting and finance, designed to equip its graduates with a thorough working knowledge of financial management - without turning them into accountants in the process.

The backgrounds of those signing up for the diploma are as varied as the world of work itself; there are now 772 Irish students enrolled on the programme, which is run on a taught and distance-learning basis. More than 8,000 people have earned the diploma worldwide - its popularity in Ireland is second only to Britain.

The age spread of the students is wide and starts at around 23 years, with junior and trainee managers, but the course is also sought by middle and senior managers whose career paths have taken them in new directions, demanding different skills.

"The course is ideal for those who are put into positions with financial responsibility without any training for such a role," explains diploma manager Milan Dalal. "This group includes engineers, doctors, teachers, IT professionals and indeed anyone in any organisation who has to control a large budget.

"The course is designed to provide students with all the information they would need to do their job, so we cover topics such as investment appraisal, budgeting, interpreting financial statements, the pricing of products and services and the relationship between costs and revenues," he says.

The ACCA offers the course to students individually, but it is also possible for companies with a big enough group to request an in-house programme. The diploma has been running since 1972 and Irish students have traditionally performed extremely well in the final examinations - last year, three students from the ESB swept the board in the final examinations, taking first, second and third places worldwide.

THE FIRST-PRIZE winner was Gary Ramsay who works with ESB International Computing. An engineer by profession, he joined the international services arm of the ESB in 1993 as a software analyst. He was responsible for the maintenance management system for power stations and now oversees the sale and installation of this system to international customers.

A first-class engineering graduate, Ram say is typical of those engineers who find themselves in senior-management positions which demand financial management skills as well as technical know-how.

"My job entails a lot of project management and I felt I needed appropriate financial-management skills to run my projects really effectively," he says.

"I had thought about an MBA but I travel quite a bit, which would have been a problem. I also felt the MBA would be too onerous at this point in time.

"The attraction of the diploma was that it focused on the aspect that I most needed training in, it was one night a week and it was possible to integrate it with my work commitments without too much difficulty. I found the course material very interesting and the notes provided were excellent. For me, it was time well spent."

Marie Hayden is also an engineer with the ESB and a graduate of the diploma programme. "I joined the ESB just over three years ago from college. As I had never studies business, I felt that on both a personal and professional level it would be good to get some experience of business and finance," she says.

"I work quite a bit on proposals that involve high capital investment and I felt I would be better able to analyse and evaluate these proposals if I had financial training."

Hayden is an electrical and electronics engineering graduate from UCD and now works as a power-system engineer with the national grid. Like Ramsay, she had contemplated an MBA but opted for the diploma as an immediate alternative.

"I'm not that long out of college and I wanted to see how I'd find the combination of work and studying at night. But it is not too difficult to fit a one-night-a-week course into your work schedule and the study time involved was reasonable. The quality of the teaching was excellent - they gave us a lot of very good notes and put a lot of effort into making the course as interesting as possible."