Accounting Program Emphasis

Should accounting programs emphasize public accounting when only 15% of the people who identified themselves as accountants in the last U.S. census are involved in audit or financial reporting?

Ethical Behavior

Will more emphasis on ethics in the classroom lead to enhanced ethical conduct? What determines ethical behavior?

The future of accounting education

One issue that deserves a lot of thought and discussion is the future of accounting education. Judy Rayburn’s comments in Accounting Education News (Winter 2006) and an article by Phil Reckers are related to this issue.* They both discuss the Education Committee of the National Association of Accountancy’s proposed recommendations for changes in accounting education. See (http://aaahq.org/temp/NASBA/index.cfm) for the original proposal. The comment letters appear on the NASB web site at (http://nasba.org/nasbaweb.nsf/pub) or from the home page (http://nasba.org/ ).

Reckers summarized the opposing arguments and placed them into five categories as follows. The proposal: 1) is based on an out-of-date input based model, 2) would impose significant economic cost on students and schools resulting in a decline in entrants to the accounting profession, 3) provides no clearly defined set of objectives or persuasive evidence that it is likely to achieve any objectives, 4) provides no mechanism to monitor and enforce compliance, and 5) reduces pedagogical flexibility at the exact time when greater flexibility is required.

Reckers goes on to discuss academic responsibilities related to the future of accounting education and listed a number of questions (a dozen of so) that need to be addressed. For example, a couple of questions are related to the NASBA’s recommendation requiring 9 hours of ethics. Does more ethics in the classroom lead to enhanced ethical conduct?

Another question relates to accounting education’s emphasis on public accounting. Are students and society best served by an accounting curricula focused on public accounting when only 15% of the people who identified themselves as accountants in the last U.S. census are involved in audit or financial reporting?

* (See Reckers, P. M. J. 2006. Perspectives on the proposal for a generally accepted accounting curriculum: A wake-up call for academics. Issues In Accounting Education (February): 31-43.)