Skip to main content
FORWARD
University
Under review

Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Capital Markets

Routine bookkeeping is automating rapidly, and the accounting graduate who can only do it is in trouble, while the region's capital markets remain thin partly for want of people who can analyse, value and assure the instruments that deepen them. This programme is built on the other side of ...

BSc (Hons)Hybrid3 years (6 semesters)Intake August 2027132 credit units

Employment thesis

What this programme is designed to produce

Forward publishes the destination of every programme before you enrol. If the thesis stops holding, the programme is reviewed and, where necessary, retired. Next review: 2032.

Roles

  • Accountant and financial analyst
  • assurance and audit associate
  • capital markets analyst
  • valuation analyst
  • investment and research analyst
  • financial controller track
  • risk and compliance analyst
  • technical founder

Employer types

  • Audit and accounting firms
  • banks
  • investors and capital markets firms
  • listed and growth companies
  • regulators and exchanges
  • development finance institutions
  • insurers and pension funds
  • consulting firms
  • government finance bodies
  • the graduate's own venture, incubated through the Forward Venture Studio

Target outcomes we hold ourselves to

  • This programme targets strong graduate compensation in finance and assurance and supports professional qualification. Progression routes include the School's masters programmes, professional accounting qualification and doctoral study.

Compulsory · The Forward Core

How the Core works →

Every Forward programme, including this one, carries the same five cross-cutting requirements. They are graded, not optional.

  • AI Fluency
  • Quantitative Reasoning
  • Ethics and African Context
  • Human-Advantage Skills
  • Enterprise

Includes 12 months paid work-integrated learning

Students complete COP 190 Workplace Immersion in the Year 1 recess term, COP 290 Co-operative Education Placement I (six months, paid, assessed) and COP 390 Co-operative Education Placement II (six months, paid, assessed), totalling not fewer than twelve months. Placement hosts are contracted by the Co-operative Education Office. The employer completes a structured capability assessment carrying 40 to 50 per cent of the placement mark and signs the capability claims that enter the Capability Passport. Online students are placed with accredited hosts in their own city or country under remote academic supervision, or have their existing employment accredited as the placement site under Part D4. Read the co-op commitment

Am I eligible?

Check yourself against the published requirements

7 questions written specifically for Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Capital Markets. Every answer is checked against a requirement Forward has published, and the result tells you which page that requirement comes from. Indicative only, the admissions office decides on your full file.

Question 1 of 70%

What is the highest qualification you hold or are completing?

Requirement tested: A completed upper-secondary qualification (UACE, A-level, IB, high-school diploma or recognised equivalent), or a post-secondary award.

Curriculum structure

The same degree, in both pathways

Every Forward programme is published in both pathways: Path One, the term plan of two six-month terms, and Path Two, the block sequence of twelve four-week blocks. Same competencies, same assessments, same award. Toggle to see this programme in each.

Path One term plan shown

Path One · The Term Model

TERM 1 (SIX MONTHS) | FORMERLY YEAR 1, SEMESTER 1 | YEAR 1 | 22Year 1
22 credit units
CodeCourseCUHours
FDC 101
AI Fluency I: How Intelligent Systems Work
Both
42-2-0
BACM 110
Foundations of Accounting
Both
53-2-2
BACM 111
Business Mathematics and Statistics
Both
53-2-2
BACM 112
Data and Analytics for Finance
Performance
42-2-4
BACM 113
Economics for Finance
Both
42-2-2
TERM 2 (SIX MONTHS) | FORMERLY YEAR 1, SEMESTER 2 | YEAR 1 | 22Year 1
22 credit units
CodeCourseCUHours
FDC 102
Quantitative Reasoning and Evidence
Both
42-2-0
BACM 130
Financial Accounting I
Both
53-2-2
BACM 131
Management Accounting
Both
53-2-2
BACM 132
Financial Accounting II and Reporting
Performance
42-2-4
BACM 133
Corporate Finance
Both
42-2-2
COP 190
Workplace Immersion (4 weeks, recessterm)
Performance
00-0-0
TERM 3 (SIX MONTHS) | FORMERLY YEAR 2, SEMESTER 1 | YEAR 2 | 22Year 2
22 credit units
CodeCourseCUHours
FDC 201
Ethics, Society and the African Context
Both
42-2-0
BACM 210
Audit and Assurance
Both
53-2-2
BACM 211
Capital Markets and Instruments
Both
53-2-2
BACM 212
Taxation and Regulation
Performance
42-2-4
BACM 213
Investment and Portfolio Analysis
Both
42-2-2
TERM 4 (SIX MONTHS) | FORMERLY YEAR 2, SEMESTER 2 | YEAR 2 | 22Year 2
22 credit units
CodeCourseCUHours
FDC 202
Human Advantage: Argument, Writing and Teams
Both
42-2-0
COP 290
Co-operative Education Placement I (6 months)
Performance
100-0-0
BACM 230
Financial Modelling and Valuation
Both
53-2-2
BACM 231
Algorithmic Assurance and Systems Audit
Performance
31-2-2
TERM 5 (SIX MONTHS) | FORMERLY YEAR 3, SEMESTER 1 | YEAR 3 | 22Year 3
22 credit units
CodeCourseCUHours
FDC 301
AI Fluency II: Building, Evaluating and Auditing
Both
42-2-0
FDC 401
/402 Capability Portfolio, Governance and Day One Block
Both
62-2-2
BACM 310
Intelligent Finance and Analytics
Both
53-2-2
BACM 311
Finance Specialisation Elective
Performance
42-2-4
BACM 312
Finance Capstone: A Valuation, Assurance or Markets Case
Both
31-2-2
TERM 6 (SIX MONTHS) | FORMERLY YEAR 3, SEMESTER 2 | YEAR 3 | 22Year 3
22 credit units
CodeCourseCUHours
FDC 302
Enterprise, Employability and Financial Literacy
Both
42-2-0
COP 390
Co-operative Education Placement II (6 months)
Performance
100-0-0
BACM 330
Professional Practice and Financial Leadership
Performance
82-2-8

Total credit units: 132

Curriculum source

Forward University Curriculum Compendium

Assessment

Assessment follows Part E without variation. Across the programme the aggregate weighting is 35 per cent continuous assessment and built artefacts, 25 per cent authentic performance including practical examination and oral defence, 30 per cent external practitioner assessment in the final year, and not more than 40 per cent written examination in any single course. The capstone is client verified and the Day One Assessment contributes 5 per cent of the final year mark. Assessment principles. Assessment is authentic, criterion referenced and, for every capability claim above Level 2, verified by someone other than the teaching lecturer. There is no compensation between competencies: a student must master each one, and a marginal performance in one cannot be offset by strength in another. Feedback is returned quickly, within seven days of a block closing in the Block Sequence, so that it can inform the next unit. A student who does not yet meet the standard is given a further, structured attempt under Part E rather than being carried forward, which protects the value of the award while supporting progression. Reasonable adjustments for disability are made under Part D without altering the competency standard.

Work-integrated learning

Students complete COP 190 Workplace Immersion in the Year 1 recess term, COP 290 Co-operative Education Placement I (six months, paid, assessed) and COP 390 Co-operative Education Placement II (six months, paid, assessed), totalling not fewer than twelve months. Placement hosts are contracted by the Co-operative Education Office. The employer completes a structured capability assessment carrying 40 to 50 per cent of the placement mark and signs the capability claims that enter the Capability Passport. Online students are placed with accredited hosts in their own city or country under remote academic supervision, or have their existing employment accredited as the placement site under Part D4.

Your week at Forward

A typical week on Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Capital Markets

Path One, the Term Model: your own pace across a six-month term, one live session a week, short flexible lessons, and assessment on demand.

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Mandatory live session Flexible bite-sized lesson Optional event

Curriculum explorer

Drill into the degree, step by step

Choose a study path, then a year, then a term or block, then a course. Credit totals add up as you go, and every course shows what comes before it and what it unlocks.

Step 1, choose a year

Step 2, choose a term

TERM 1 (SIX MONTHS) | FORMERLY YEAR 1, SEMESTER 1 | YEAR 1 | 22

Year 1 · this step is worth 22 CU

Cumulative

22

Programme total

132

22 CU of 132 CU completed by the end of this step (17%)

Step 3, choose a course

Pick a course to see the detail

Credits, assessment, prerequisites and what each course unlocks later.

The twelve Forward capabilities

What this programme develops in you

Every Forward degree develops the same twelve cross-cutting capabilities. The profile below is the level this programme is designed to develop and verify by graduation, on the four-level scale in Part B2 of the Curriculum Compendium. Every claim above Level 2 is verified by someone other than the teaching lecturer.

  • C1Intelligent Systems FluencyLevel 3 of 4, Independent
  • C2Quantitative and Evidential Reasoning CriticalLevel 4 of 4, Leading
  • C3Ethical and Contextual Judgement CriticalLevel 4 of 4, Leading
  • C4Communication and PersuasionLevel 4 of 4, Leading
  • C5Disciplinary Mastery CriticalLevel 4 of 4, Leading
  • C6Technical Production and CraftLevel 3 of 4, Independent
  • C7Problem Framing and Systems ThinkingLevel 3 of 4, Independent
  • C8Collaboration and Multidisciplinary TeamingLevel 3 of 4, Independent
  • C9Enterprise, Value and Commercial LiteracyLevel 4 of 4, Leading
  • C10Professional Conduct and Workplace Performance CriticalLevel 4 of 4, Leading
  • C11Learning to Learn and Adaptive CapacityLevel 4 of 4, Leading
  • C12Stewardship and Public ContributionLevel 3 of 4, Independent

Critical capabilities for this programme: Quantitative and Evidential Reasoning · Ethical and Contextual Judgement · Disciplinary Mastery · Professional Conduct and Workplace Performance. A graduate cannot pass out of this programme below the stated level on any capability marked critical.

Programme Learning Outcomes

What you will be able to do

Each outcome is assessed, and each is tagged with the Forward capabilities it is verified against.

  1. PLO 1Prepare, analyse and interpret financial statements to standard.
  2. PLO 2Design and perform assurance, including the audit of automated systems.
  3. PLO 3Value a company, an asset or an instrument and defend the valuation.
  4. PLO 4Analyse capital markets and investment decisions with evidence.
  5. PLO 5Apply financial and management accounting to a business decision.
  6. PLO 6Apply data, analytics and intelligent tools to accounting and finance.
  7. PLO 7Apply financial regulation, ethics and governance to practice.
  8. PLO 8Manage financial risk and C1, C9 compliance in an organisation.
  9. PLO 9Cost, pitch and defend a C8 financial analysis or venture to a decision maker and investor.
  10. PLO 10Acquire and demonstrate C10 a new capability without formal instruction, evidenced in the Capability Passport.

Why this programme exists

Routine bookkeeping is automating rapidly, and the accounting graduate who can only do it is in trouble, while the region's capital markets remain thin partly for want of people who can analyse, value and assure the instruments that deepen them. This programme is built on the other side of automation: judgement, assurance, valuation and the analysis of capital, with the automated systems themselves treated as something to be audited. It unites accounting with capital markets so the graduate can move between the firm's books and the market that prices them, with real financial data and real analysis from Year 1.

Admission requirements

Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education with two principal passes, preferably including Mathematics or Economics; plus Uganda Certificate of Education with five passes including Mathematics and English. Applicants sit a structured quantitative task scored against Capabilities C2 and C9. All applicants must demonstrate competence in English, the language of instruction, through their qualifications or an approved proficiency test under Part A. International and non standard qualifications are assessed for equivalence against the profile above under the Credential Portability provisions, so that a suitably prepared applicant may enter from anywhere in the world. Selection considers the whole application, including the structured admission task, and is conducted without discrimination under the University's admissions policy. Alternative pathways: Foundation Year, diploma entry with advanced standing, mature age entry and recognition of prior learning, all governed by Part A5 and Part G. Online applicants additionally complete the compulsory Digital Readiness orientation under Part D6.

Digital Business & Finance

Other open programmes in this School

BSc (Hons)

Bachelor of Science in Business Artificial Intelligence

Employers report that the scarcest artificial intelligence skill is not model building but translation: the person who can look at a business process, judge where an intelligent system would actually pay, specify it, get it adopted and prov...

View programme
BSc (Hons)

Bachelor of Science in Digital Finance and Financial Technology

East Africa built the world's most consequential mobile money systems and then trained almost nobody to run the next generation of them. Payments, digital lending, embedded finance and digital assets now form one of the region's largest emp...

View programme
BSc (Hons)

Bachelor of Science in Supply Chain Intelligence and Digital Trade

Uganda is landlocked, and every shilling of its competitiveness is decided somewhere in a corridor, a warehouse or a customs post. The African Continental Free Trade Area makes the next decade decisive, yet supply chain is still taught here...

View programme
BSc (Hons)

Bachelor of Science in Entrepreneurship and Venture Building

Entrepreneurship is taught almost everywhere as a subject and almost nowhere as an apprenticeship, which is why entrepreneurship graduates so rarely start anything. This programme inverts that. Students operate inside the Forward Venture St...

View programme
BSc (Hons)

Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Algorithmic Assurance

Routine bookkeeping is automating rapidly, and the accounting graduate who can only do it is in trouble. What is not automating is judgement, assurance and the audit of the automated systems themselves — an entirely new professional territo...

View programme
BSc (Hons)

Bachelor of Science in Actuarial Science and Risk Analytics

Insurance penetration in Uganda remains among the lowest in the world, and one binding constraint is the near absence of qualified actuaries to price, reserve and regulate products for African risk profiles. The profession is also being res...

View programme
MBA

Master of Business Administration in Artificial Intelligence and Digital Strategy

Most executive education about artificial intelligence teaches leaders to talk about it. This degree teaches them to decide about it: which processes to automate, what to build against what to buy, how to price the risk, how to restructure ...

View programme
MSc

Master of Science in Financial Technology and Digital Assets

Financial infrastructure in Africa is being rebuilt in this decade — instant payment systems, interoperable mobile money, central bank digital currency pilots and tokenised assets — and the institutions doing it are competing for a very sma...

View programme
MSc

Master of Science in Marketing Intelligence and Growth Systems

Marketing has become an engineering and measurement discipline, and the gap between marketers who can run an attribution model and those who cannot is now the gap between a career and a dead end. This intensive programme rebuilds marketing ...

View programme
Doctorate

Doctor of Business Administration

An applied doctorate for senior executives and institutional leaders who need to conduct rigorous research on a problem inside their own sector rather than pursue an academic career. The distinguishing requirement is that the research must ...

View programme
MSc

Master of Science in Venture Building

Entrepreneurship is taught almost everywhere as a subject and almost nowhere as an apprenticeship, which is why so few graduates start anything that lasts. This masters inverts that. It is a structured venture building programme for technically capable people who intend to found or lead a company, ...

View programme
BSc (Hons)

Bachelor of Science in Growth and Marketing Systems

Marketing has become an engineering and measurement discipline, and the gap between marketers who can run an attribution model and those who cannot is now the gap between a career and a dead end. The region trains marketers for a world of brand slogans while employers need people who can build ...

View programme