Literature has shown that there is a link between self-esteem and how students interact with their peers and lecturers. This relationship will impact on two learning outcomes -- learning performance and academic performance. Chartered accounting programmes are measured by whether students pass a professional qualifying examination at the end of their university studies. One way of improving the pass-rate of students in Chartered accounting programmes and in the professional qualifying examination, is to improve their self-esteem and the level of student-student interaction and lecturer-student interaction. This study intends to investigate the relationship between self-esteem and student interaction and therefore learning performance and academic performance in a chartered accounting programme at a historically disadvantaged university in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. A positivistic, survey approach was used to collect data from 313 students (65% of the population). Responses were analysed using general structural equation modelling. The study found that self-esteem influences student-student interaction, lecturer-student interaction, learning performance and academic performance. As suggested in previous research, these findings support developing an environment that improves students' self-esteem and facilitates interactions which lead to greater student learning. In order to improve students' performance in accounting qualifications lecturers should implement strategies to improve the self-esteem of students and to encourage students to engage actively in the learning process.