International accounting education: Insights from academicians and practitioners

In the last years, the worldwide changes in global, political and financial contexts have gradually modified the approaches to the accounting of national governments and international institutions. In this varying scenario, the International Accounting Standard Board (IASB) and consequently national governments have introduced new accounting standards along with related regulatory changes. These issues are of ever-growing importance when considering that the International Accounting Education Standards Board (IAESB) has recently developed “The basis for conclusions document for 2017-2021 IAESB Strategy and 2017-2018 Work Plan” (IAESB, 2017) with the aim of informing the Board’s deliberations on its future strategy and priorities about the future expectations of professional competence. The aim of this paper is to report the findings of an empirical study on this topic and address the following research question: what are professional accountants’ views on quality in accounting education? This primary research question is expanded to consider professional accountants’ beliefs on the present (what is necessary for their workplace) and future (what will be necessary for their workplace) with respect to quality in accounting education. The survey highlights how professional accountants have more expectations than in the past about their skills. The majority of professional accountants have been transforming themselves into business consultants since they are now required to offer more services than accounting and taxation consultancy. Consequently, there is a growing demand for cooperation with the university world in order to broaden the programs of accounting education with new technical competencies for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees.

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Assessment of the Jordanian Certified Public Accountant JCPA Examination in Comparison to the International Accounting Education Standards and the Best International Practices

International Business Research ◽

10.5539/ibr.v10n8p232 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 10 (8) ◽

pp. 232

Author(s):

Mahmoud Nassar ◽

Husam Aldeen AL-Khadash

Keyword(s):

Accounting Education ◽

International Accounting ◽

Certified Public Accountant ◽

Education Standards ◽

Accounting Practice ◽

Computer Based ◽

Specific Material ◽

Further Development ◽

Public Accountant

This study aims to highlight the experiences of Jordanian Certified Public Accountant (JCPA) exam that started with the establishment of the Legal Accounting Profession organisation law in June 2006. This study is considered the first study in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan that looks at the evaluation of the Jordanian Chartered Public Accountant exam, in comparison to the requirements of international accounting education standards. Furthermore, this study focuses on the sixth standard IES6 that relates to the assessment of professional accountants and that is based on the best practices in professional accounting examinations in the world. This current study has adopted the method of distribution of questionnaires to gather information from those who participated in taking the exam, with the group of those who were successful, and others that were not so lucky. The accounting practice analysis was based on the standards, the best accounting practices, and the results of the interviews, which when were completed produced a number of recommendations. The recommendations or results found, push for the further development of the JCPA exam and improves the quality of the exam, to advance to the universal level of professional examinations. Of the most important recommendations is to work on increasing the number of times the exam is held annually, which can be done easily if the exam becomes computer based. It’s also important to develop specific firm dates for the JCPA exam or to announce the dates at the beginning of each year, and not to announce the exam time two months prior to the exam as it is currently. Finally, the announcement and clarification of specific percentages given to specific material included in the exam such as dedicating 25% of the examination to International Auditing Standards and so on.

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