|
Recommendations for Change
The current environment makes real curricular change essential and necessitates responses from a dynamic partnership between practitioners and academicians. First, the profession must specify the capabilities necessary for practice and communicate these to the academic community. With this input, faculty can develop a relevant and stimulating curriculum with state-of-the-art teaching methods.Recognizing our responsibility to the profession, we have joined together to provide our views on the skills and knowledge needed by tomorrow's practitioner. Considering the diversity of practices in our firms, we believe that the capabilities outlined later in this paper are representative of the requirements for the profession. We also present the following recommendations for a coordinated approach to making changes in education for accounting:
- "The Capabilities Necessary for Practice," which follows these recommendations, should be used by the academic community as a statement of needs for the profession.
- A coordinating committee of all major constituencies should be formed to address issues that impact the educational process and to guide the academic community in re-engineering the curriculum. Representation would include, among others, the AICPA, AAA, AACSB, National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA), Financial Executives Institute (FEI), National Association of Accountants (NAA) and the major firms.
- Our firms should participate in, and support, the coordinating committee and other appropriate groups with leadership, guidance and financial resources.
- The American Accounting Association, as the primary organization representing accounting faculty, should be encouraged to take the leadership role in establishing the coordinating committee. Efforts by the AAA to bring about the required curricular changes should be supported by the profession.
- Designated representatives from the profession should actively participate in the review of the accreditation standards to be conducted by the AACSB.
We also understand that external factors, such as professional examinations and conditions of licensure, effect the educational process. In the future, organizations responsible for such activities should recognize, in their policies and procedures, the broad skills and knowledge needed by the profession. Particularly important are the scope and timing of the CPA examination.