Free degrees to lure accountants

UNIVERSITIES and big accounting firms are recruiting high school students for free accounting degrees.

Glen Hutchings, at rear, with A. J. McDonald and Tara Franzinelli

UNIVERSITIES and big accounting firms are recruiting high school students for free accounting degrees in a desperate attempt to alleviate the skills shortage in the profession.

Talented Year 12 students are being offered part-time jobs and free university degrees by firms, even before they have applied for a university place.

First-year students are also being poached by companies to work full-time with incentives such as sign-up bonuses, rumoured to be as much as $10,000 for each student.

Universities are also setting up post-graduate conversion courses where students who did not study accounting can cram an undergraduate course into just one year.

Latest figures show there are four vacancies for every one accountant and the shortage is expected to get worse because not enough school-leavers are choosing to study the field. Universities and accounting professional bodies are running advertising campaigns to make accountancy more appealing to students by changing perceptions that it is just number crunching.

They are also calling on the federal Government to rethink its decision to cut funding for business courses, saying increased degree costs will turn even more students away from accounting.

Sheena Frenkel, general manager of the chartered accountants program at the Institute of Chartered Accountants, said there was a serious shortage in the profession.

Ms Frenkel said accountants were one of the most sought-after graduates in 2006, with the profession making up 25 per cent of all graduate jobs.

But the number of school leavers choosing to study accounting is not increasing enough to fill the void.

"In the past 10 years, there has been at best a 2 per cent increase in domestic university students graduating in accounting. That has not kept pace with demand," she said.

Ms Frenkel said the ICA was launching a high school program to "better communicate" accounting as a career to school leavers.

She said major firms were also recruiting Year 12 students across the country into traineeships, where they worked part-time and the firm paid their degree fees.

But Ms Frenkel said the federal Government's move to decrease funding would not help the shortage.

"This will dissuade university students from starting accounting degrees," she said.

Australian Business Deans Council president Tim Brailsford said the shortage had led to accounting firms recruiting students as early as first year.

Professor Brailsford, business school head at the University of Queensland, said students were being offered sign-up bonuses of up to $10,000 by firms.

But Professor Brailsford said there was a downside to jumping into full-time work before finishing study.

"They are probably not maximising their academic potential because of work pressures. The students start to cut corners and rather than trying to achieve top marks, they think, 'What do I need to do just to pass this?"' he said.

Professor Brailsford said the federal Government failed to recognise there was a white collar skills shortage and needed urgently to do something about it.

"I see a day in the future when a member of the public trying to get an accountant will be as difficult as trying to get a plumber to turn up on time," he said.

Swinburne University accounting professor Louise Kloot said there was not only a shortage of quality graduates but a shortage of accounting academics to teach them.

"We are very concerned about the shortage of accountants and the fact that work is going offshore as a solution," Professor Kloot said.

"That's going to create real problems for businesses in the future."

She called for government, business leaders, academics and accounting firms to hold a forum to try and sort out a solution to the crisis.

University of Adelaide school of commerce head Barry Burgan said there was a greater need for accountants across the world because of the higher governance standards introduced in response to spectacular corporate failures such as Enron in the US. He said universities needed to change perceptions of accounting to attract more talented students rather than lowering course entry scores.

"The role of the accountant is not just someone in a striped suit working with numbers all the time," he said.

"The life of an accountant is a very interesting one."

Curtin University head of accounting John Neilson said Curtin was using senior businessmen as role models to try to get more students in courses.

"Accounting is not perceived to be a glamour subject," Professor Neilson said.

"But that is not right ... and we have to get that message across."