Employability skills in the Master of Professional Accounting : One school ’ s journey

This paper describes the efforts made by the School of Accounting, Finance and Economics at Edith Cowan University (ECU) to address concerns expressed by the accounting profession, employer groups, higher education reviews and universities regarding the employability of accounting graduates and the need for accounting graduates to demonstrate a higher level of competence in non-technical skills. A comprehensive review of the twelve core units of the Master of Professional Accounting (MPA) program at ECU was undertaken in order to investigate this issue. The initial stage of the review involved the identification of the key ‘employability skills’ required of accounting graduates and the next stage involved the determination of the extent to which these employability skills are currently being addressed in the program. The findings are based on the examination of unit plans, interviews with unit coordinators, the results of surveys as well as meetings with other key stakeholders. Evidence from the review indicated that there was no coordinated approach towards addressing employability skills in the MPA program; strategies currently employed are inconsistent and lack appropriate content, assessment and feedback; and there is inadequate consultation with other stakeholders. A proposed framework for the embedding and scaffolding of employability skills across all twelve core units of the MPA is presented along with a number of strategies for the implementation of this framework.