US Students Not Ready for International Accounting Standards

With a new administration in the Oval Office, accounting firms, corporations, and university accounting programs are all anxious to find out how quickly the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) will be adopted for US listed companies.

University of Dayton accounting professor and President of the International Association for Accounting Education and Research, Donna Street, doesn’t think US schools are moving quickly enough to turn out graduates with the skills needed in the new international accounting job market.

“Many business schools are not moving quickly enough to teach the international standards and equip accounting graduates with the knowledge they’ll need to be competitive.”

Although the movement to from Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) to IFRS has been in the works for several years, Street said that business schools should be doing a better job of preparing students to work in both systems.

“Recent surveys suggest that fewer than 25 percent of U.S. business schools are presently providing some IFRS training for accounting majors. Schools should be teaching both IFRS and U.S. GAAP concepts, but few U.S. faculty are trained in international standards.”

So how are US students going to learn what their professors don’t know? This is a great example of where business must work together with higher education to ensure that the right skill sets are being taught to US graduates. If haven’t ramped up by the time IFRS is fully implemented, the big accounting will have to train US new hires on the job or hire non-US candidates.

Street says:

“Even if the U.S. does not move to the international standard in the next few years, more and more U.S.-based accountants and auditors will be working for or with companies preparing IFRS accounts. Recent graduates report that knowledge of IFRS is useful in their careers. Graduates of schools providing substantial IFRS training are definitely going to be ahead of the game and sought out by employees.”

Street also noted that that more students are asking for training on IFRS. No matter what the SEC decideds in terms of a time table, it’s all going to come down to having people in the field that have the skills to do the work. It looks like industry and academia will have to work together to prepare students in the next few years.

Are you an accounting student? We’d love to hear how IFRS is being covered at your school.

Image Credit: ronnie44052, Flickr