- Title
- Work-readiness of university graduates: a professional accounting educational expectation gap in South Africa
- Creator
- Schoeman, Lynn Antoinette
- Subject
- Accountants -- Employment -- South Africa -- Students
- Subject
- College graduates -- Employment -- South Africa School-to-work transition -- South Africa Employability -- South Africa -- Students
- Date Issued
- 2017
- Date
- 2017
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- MTech
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10948/20455
- Identifier
- vital:29288
- Description
- The constant change in the business environment versus the curriculum content of accounting educational programmes result in a possible gap between the competencies gained by students who complete their degree qualifications compared to the expectations of employers of these entering trainee accountants. However, the universities do endeavour to teach students the syllabus that will provide them with sufficient information and skills to be able to complete the tasks expected from them without much learning following university. Universities face increasing pressure to ensure graduates are equipped with the right employability skills (Osmani, Weerakkody & Hindi, 2017) yet literature show that graduates entering the workforce are not sufficiently equipped with all the necessary non-technical skills required by the accounting profession (Fouché, 2013). The research for this study was guided by the question whether universities sufficiently prepare entering trainee accountants with regards to work-readiness skills and whether a gap exists between the level of work-readiness skills expected by employers in professional accounting practice, and the actual level of capability of these skills transferred through the formal professional accounting educational programmes offered by universities in South Africa. Published literature reviewed on the work-readiness of graduates showed that an educational gap could exist between the skills required by employees and the skills that entering trainee accountants possess. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather data from supervisors and/or coordinators from Accredited Training Centres (ATCs) in the Nelson Mandela Bay Region of the South African Institute of Professional Accountants (SAIPA) on their perception of the level of capability expected of entering trainee accountants. The findings of this study showed that the universities provide entering trainee accountants with sufficient knowledge insofar as their technical abilities are concerned. However, employers perceive entering trainee accountants‟ capabilities in terms of their work-readiness skills, as insufficient.
- Format
- ix, 109 leaves
- Format
- Publisher
- Nelson Mandela University
- Publisher
- Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Nelson Mandela University
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