Curating the curriculum (Part 5 of the academic criticism series for the accountancy program)

Previous week was a quiet week for me as I spent a week in the rusticated province outside of City Centre of Staffordshire. It was a week spent without quality access to internet but a time well spent to do some further research into my industry expertise areas.

Last week, I breathed out my comments against the qualifications of educators in the Philippines teaching major courses. This time, I shall go back to the main root of the problem which is believe is the curriculum. I have criticised in my previous posts the outdated curriculum that we have in the Philippines and have commented several times on some points for improvement.

VII. Curriculum

The curriculum for the BSA program in the Philippines is quite rigid and fixated on technical accounting stuffs. Not that I mean that those are bad, but it simply does not work anymore with the current demands of the profession.

One of the most important things that I’ve learned throughout my professional life is to find a niche where I know I can stand firm on. Finding a niche is quite difficult and requires a lot of pondering time to think what you really want. Further, once you found you niche, you got to be able to study well that niche and be a knowledge leader on that. This is one of the most important thing that I learned in order to stay on top of everything especially in dealing with industry leaders.

(Note: This is quite a side story) Back in the Philippines, I invested heavy amounts of time researching about the sugar business. It was an arduous process to learn the nitty-gritty of the industry and to find yourself leading discussions with client top management when it comes to the industry.

One of the most memorable lessons to me discussed by the Firm’s market leader is that to deliver exceptional client service, we need to be able to insightful to client needs. It is no longer the time when we keep our discussion with client on technical accounting and audit issues, it is now the time that we impress our clients with our knowledge of the industry and provide insights on how the industry work and how global economy affects the company in the long-run.

The discussion above on focussed on the importance of the ability to gather information across available resources into easily digestible and communicable sizes. This is one thing that the Philippine accountancy curriculum really lacks. The curriculum focusses too much on training students to be experts (although I doubt this is achieved) on IFRS and other matters to be tackled in the board exam. This is not what the market needs, we’ve extended the academic program by one year from the previous four-year program and the academe simply added some idiotic courses which do not really help.

I just really have to poke fun on this. I remembered browsing through a curriculum with a course named “current issues and developments in accounting” and definitely I was curious since the time that I learned about this new course was the time when IFRS 9, 15 and IFRIC 21 was issued by the IASB and developments on the revised lease accounting as part of the Norwalk Agreement update from the FASB and IASB, also, definitely, there are a lot of accounting issues to discuss at the moment. But no, I just learnt that the topics discussed are catch-up topics which are not covered during previous financial accounting courses. I was indeed, disappointed.

Then, I can remember how we’ve done our research and thesis back in university years. While our thesis topic is really not quite exactly accounting related, there’s just too much thesis topics being approved which are totally not related to accounting. This is applicable to all universities that offer sole BSA degree. Other than that, I don’t really think that we’ve done much research throughout college years.

Recommendation

Looking through my experience, I would like to have the following changes:

· Remove the requirement that only graduates of BSA can take the CPA board exam. I do not believe that you need to complete a five-year BSA program just to be qualified to take the board examination. Provided that you have real passion over accounting and would like to be certified, then let it be. Accounting is an art and people with passion from all walks shall be allowed to take it.

· Insert the requirement that only graduates with at least 2- or 3-year work experience in a Board of Accountancy accredited firm or company can take the board examination. This way, accounting firms and companies will be forced to provide paid training programs to graduates doing their internships while studying for the board examination. Further, this would allow students to experience first-hand on how their education takes shape in the real world.

· Change the board examination format to include a case study section to test whether candidates can put knowledge into synthesis. This would allow students to not just have a sound knowledge of specific concepts on a topic-by-topic basis but rather to learn on a holistic basis.

· Allow taking of examinations by part to allow students to work while studying for the board examination.

· Integrate research core skills in accountancy curriculum and revisit course outlines to ensure more rounded students are produced.

· Incentivize firms and companies providing training programs to interns to allow firms and companies to be more willing to sponsor training program for those wanting to take the CPA board examination.

· Improve the poor quality of business education provided in the accountancy program and revisit the business courses taken to ensure that graduates have a good overall appreciation of the business world.

Summary

The market needs people who understand business and the industry. There’s not so much need to be technical at such a young age as there are people out there doing technical stuffs for a living (unless you wanna come here and work with me). What we’d like to see are young people enthusiastic to learn how businesses work and young people capable of seeing the big picture rather than looking through things item-by-item.

How long will it take for us to act and see through change. If now’s not the time, then the academe might be asleep.