ACCOUNTANCY guru Mark Protherough turned up at the University of Wales College Newport last week to present the institution's Premier Plus status.

Mr Protherough, who is director of training at the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), said: "This university is now officially among the top 25 in the world for teaching ACCA's professional examinations.

"I've had a long and happy association with UWCN's School of Business and Management, and believe the quality of the tuition, both in accounting and other subjects, is first class."

Receiving the award, Lionel Griffiths, accounting subject group leader, said: "We have just celebrated 30 years of ACCA courses at UWCN and this is like putting the icing on the cake."

The Premier Plus status is the highest level of recognition granted by ACCA, which claims to be the fastest-growing professional accountancy body in the world. It has over 300,000 students and members worldwide. UWCN is the only tuition provider within South Wales and the border counties to be accredited by ACCA to run an internally-assessed course.

Mr Griffiths said: "One of the factors in our success is the excellent ACCA pass rates here. Our students' marks easily exceeded ACCA's Premier Plus targets."

He cited the example of student Laura Rees who passed the final ACCA examinations in June 2003 and was placed joint seventh in the world in the advanced corporate reporting paper with a mark of 83 per cent.

Laura was awarded the Marsh Bessant prize for achieving the highest mark by a UWCN student.