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Sources of Capabilities
The skills and knowledge that support the successful practitioner come from three sources:TalentsPre-entry education
Continuing education and development.
In this discussion, the term "pre-entry" is used to describe any education required prior to beginning licensing procedures. Under the present model, this may include both undergraduate and graduate education. The term "continuing education and development" includes all training, education and development during the period a person is involved in the public accounting profession. This encompasses all formal and informal, classroom and on-the-job, firm-supported or individual experiences.
Talents
Clearly, pre-entry education cannot bear the total responsibility for developing the capabilities discussed earlier. Each individual has inherent talents that will contribute to a successful professional career.
Pre-entry education must be perceived as sufficiently stimulating, interesting and rewarding to draw the best students. At the same time, the opportunities for challenging work, reward and advancement in the public accounting profession must also be competitive to maintain a pool of high-talent practitioners.
Pre-Entry Education
Pre-entry education has focused on developing rule-based knowledge. Beyond anecdotal evidence, little is known about its ability to create or strengthen the other capabilities discussed in this paper. It seems to be a reasonable and necessary goal for pre-entry education to make significant improvements in these capabilities.
Continuing Education and Development
Major accounting firms devote significant resources to the continuing education and development of their personnel. These programs are an integral part of lifelong education for service in the public accounting profession. Any comprehensive effort to improve education for accounting must include continuing education and development. Challenging opportunities for learning and using skills and knowledge are an important part of the exciting and rewarding career that will attract and keep high-quality entrants.
Continuing education in the firms must meet several goals. First, it must support and enhance the knowledge and skills cited earlier. By doing so, it will achieve its second goal-to help attract and keep the best people in the profession.
To meet these goals, continuing education and development will require considerable commitment by the firms. As university curricula are re-engineered, continuing education must be redesigned. The focus on developing capabilities that is proposed for pre-entry education should become the model for education in practice. To support this comprehensive approach, licensing laws must include appropriate credit for continuing education in the development of all the capabilities. Restriction of full Continuing Professional Education credit to a narrow range of technical subjects would obstruct the development of the broad range of capabilities needed for the practice.