Education
Professional Competence
CGA's recent practice analysis ensures that members have what it takes.
FROM: MAR-APR 2004 ISSUE | BY DAVID HARRISON
What are the essential competencies required to be a professional accountant, and how do professional associations identify, teach, develop, monitor, and evaluate these skills? The public expects a professional association to certify people with the highest standards of ethical and professional conduct. This much has become crystal clear in the post-Enron era of public scrutiny. So every profession must identify the areas of practice that are essential and certify only those who demonstrate this level of expertise.
The accounting profession in recent years has placed increasing emphasis on the development and demonstration of competencies, in addition to traditional knowledge acquisition. This approach is known as competency-based education .
The International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) defined competence in 1998 as "the ability to perform the tasks and roles expected of a professional accountant, whether newly qualified or experienced, to the standards expected by employers and the general public." CGA-Canada takes this definition a step further, describing a competence as "a specific behaviour whereby a professional applies knowledge, skills, and/or professional values in a work environment; the behaviour can be defined, demonstrated, observed, and assessed."
"The CGA program has been competency-based since the mid-1980s," says Lynda Carson, FCGA, vice-president, education and professional affairs at CGA-Canada. "Our focus is on application and integration. In other words, what are you going to do as a practicing accountant? It's not just about what you know from your studies. It's how you apply it in the real world."
Bob Shahi, FCGA, former member of CGA-Canada's National Education Committee (NEC), echoes Carson's comments. "A competency-based professional program enhances and builds on the university education," he says. "At university or college, they often teach a very academic, theoretical model to students. Theory is important, but with a competency-based program, what we're trying to get at is how to apply that knowledge."
Shahi, who chaired the Association's last practice analysis project in 1998, describes competencies as what employers want to see in their professionals. "When employers hire somebody, they are not looking for a person with only theoretical knowledge, but a professional who can put the knowledge to work," he says.
Competencies provide relevance, says Charles Mossman, PhD, FCGA, a professor at the University of Manitoba and also a former member of the NEC. "Competencies provide a guideline as to what we should be focusing on in terms of what people need to be professionals. Students in the CGA program can be sure that what they're actually learning will have high relevance to their current and future work."
The CGA Practice Analysis
CGA-Canada recently completed a comprehensive practice analysis. The aims of the study were to validate the Association's requirements for certifying accountants; provide input for the CGA program's curriculum development, benchmark equivalent
post-secondary courses, and confirm the profession's requirements for practical experience.
The Association contracted independent consulting firm Professional Examination Service to survey 2,500 CGAs in order to gather information on contemporary professional practice. Also surveyed were 300 recruiters, employers, and supervisors of CGAs.
The responses to the survey ranked 147 competency statements that defined the work of a CGA. These competency statements were grouped into four areas: technical knowledge, general management, professionalism, and leadership. Also validated were 176 topics in seven technical knowledge areas: financial accounting and reporting, management accounting, assurance, finance and financial planning, general business, information technology, and taxation.
| The top 8 out of 147 competencies identified in the CGA 2002-03 practice analysis |
| Competency statement |
 |
Survey category |
| Applies professional ethical standards |
Professionalism: Ethics and Trust |
| Exercises consistently high level of professional judgment |
Professionalism: Ethics and Trust |
| Ensures confidentiality with respect to organizational or client information and data |
General Management: Communicating |
| Protects the public interest |
Professionalism: Ethics and Trust |
| Acts within the scope of professional competence |
Professionalism: Professional Self-Evaluation |
| Formulates, analyzes, and processes transactions in accordance with professional standards and policies |
Technical Knowledge: Financial Accounting and Reporting |
| Ensures the reliability of financial information |
Technical Knowledge: Financial Accounting and Reporting |
| Prepares financial statements appropriate for the users |
Technical Knowledge: Financial Accounting and Reporting |
See the complete list at http://www.cga-canada.org
Survey Results
Competencies in financial accounting and reporting are traditionally recognized as core competencies of CGAs. In the ranking of technical knowledge, competency statements, financial accounting and reporting, and management accounting and taxation ranked highest in importance. Finance and financial planning, assurance, general business, and information technology ranked next.
The need for what are often viewed as "soft skills" was also underlined in the survey results. Communication skills were rated as the most important general management competency, edging out other critical and widely accepted managerial competencies such as planning, allocating and managing resources, and measuring and monitoring. These results validated the key professional capability of communicating effectively when dealing with a client in a business environment. Similarly, the ratings of leadership competencies
recognized the importance of this capability in a team approach in organizational settings.
Ratings for professionalism, which were the highest-ranked competencies overall, saw ethics and trust, problem solving, professional development, and professional self-evaluation topping the list.
Another survey result was that approximately 50 per cent of CGAs were most interested in obtaining a masters of business administration if they were to pursue an additional degree or designation, well ahead of the interest in other designations, such as Chartered Financial Analyst, Certified Financial Planner, and Certified Fraud Examiner. This result underlines the importance of CGA-Canada's partnerships with Laurentian University to provide the online MBA program and Athabasca University to offer the Executive MBA for members.
A benefit of the periodic practice analysis is the opportunity it provides for practitioners to influence what's going to be learned by future CGAs. "Both the updating and prioritizing of competencies are really important for keeping in touch with what's going on in the profession," says Mossman. "CGA practitioners quite often will tell me about unique challenges they face daily that their program prepared them well to handle."
The survey asked CGAs to identify the new knowledge and skills they acquired during the past year as part of their ongoing professional development. Knowledge and skills learned in the area of information technology included software packages and computer systems, networking and Internet issues, database management, and security issues. In the area of taxation, CGAs learned more about GST and PST; about commodity tax changes and source deductions; as well as federal, provincial, and local tax updates and international taxation. Soft skills CGAs acquired included communications skills, staff and management training, project and time management, presentation skills, human resource management and team building, networking, and general business knowledge.
Among the skills learned in the technical areas were performance measurement, government legislation and initiatives, risk assessment, internal audits and controls, corporate governance, changing regulatory enforcement, industry-specific knowledge, benchmarking, not-for-profit accounting, and financial planning.
Respondents were also asked to identify changes and trends in the accounting profession. When conducting audits, CGAs foresee increased reporting requirements and levels of accountability, a renewed focus on ethics and rebuilding public trust, and an increased attention to fraud detection. There will also be an increased focus on corporate governance and assessment of internal controls, increased liability of audits and the presentation of financial statements, and greater government oversight. CGAs saw an increased level of scrutiny from both regulatory bodies and the public. Other predicted changes to the profession include increased focus on international trade and globalization, the harmonization of U.S. and Canadian GAAP, an expanded role for CGAs in business as consultants and decision-makers, and an increased need to communicate complex financial information to the public.
The Three Es: Education, Examination, and Experience
Analysis of results from studies such as this is crucial, asserts Shahi, who is director of internal audit for the Government of the Northwest Territories in Yellowknife. "Unless you have a practice analysis to work from, an accounting curriculum can just take on a hit-or-miss approach," he says. Instead, the results of the practice analysis link the actual day-to-day experience of members to the development of the Association's education, examinations, and experience requirements. CGA's curriculum developers are continuing to work with professional and academic content experts to refresh those linkages from competencies to course content and certification examination requirements.
Another use of the survey results is for curriculum developers to link the necessary and supporting knowledge topics to each competency. This process will help identify any gaps in the program and point to needs for new program content. The NEC will also be reviewing the standards that establish the performance level expected for each of the competencies required of a newly-certified CGA. NEC will ensure competencies are evaluated at the right level of performance and assess whether knowledge topics are covered at the right depth.
"We want to ensure that everything in the program is relevant to the competencies required for certification," summarizes Carson. "This includes eliminating material that is no longer relevant and being continually open to introducing new knowledge and competencies. Another outcome of the study is that we can take a fresh look at what CGAs need to know and be able to do before and after certification."
To ensure that the Association's post-certification professional development services meet members' needs, staff are analyzing the respondents' qualitative comments on the knowledge and skills CGAs had to acquire to perform their jobs. They will then evaluate the proficiency level and comprehensiveness of current professional development offerings. They will also review respondents' opinions on what changes are expected in the profession over the next three years.
In 2000, CGA-Canada introduced its Competency Framework for members, an Internet-based service allowing members to assess their own competency levels and design their ongoing professional development. The results provide the opportunity to further develop the competency profiles for various jobs a CGA might hold in the financial community. These are an important component of the Competency Framework and the Professional Development Network Web site, which can be accessed at www.cga-pd.net.
Lifelong Learning
The results of the practice analysis study identify who CGAs are and what they do. They also identify emerging trends for professional development. By focusing on competencies, the Association can focus on where the need is, as Shahi explains: "Competencies today and competencies five and ten years from now may look quite different, so we must continue to keep the Competency Framework fully current."
Mossman agrees. "Knowledge rapidly gets out of date, and the
competencies or skill sets that people have must change over time," he says, indicating this is why the Association conducts a comprehensive practice analysis study about every five years. "By engaging practitioners in what needs to be done, the Association can actually foresee, to some degree, which competencies are required in the years ahead. The record shows, especially in areas like ethics, information technology, and general management, that the Association has been pretty good at anticipating the future."
CGA-Canada plans to continue this initiative to ensure that new competencies in emerging fields such as globalization, forensic accounting, international taxation, and corporate governance are fully supported by its Program of Professional Studies and by its professional development offerings.
Definition of a CGA used in the practice analysis
A CGA is a financial professional with expertise in accounting, auditing, finance, taxation, and information technology who has met the education, experience, and examination requirements of the Association and been admitted to membership. CGAs work throughout the world in industry, commerce, finance, government, public practice, and the not-for-profit sector, providing integrated business services to a wide clientele ranging from individuals to multinational corporations. CGAs are governed by a code of ethical principles and rules of conduct; they operate under mandates established by legislation to protect the public interest. |
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David Harrison, PhD, is senior academic advisor to CGA-Canada. He has worked on all aspects of the CGA education program over the past twenty years. This article was prepared with the assistance of Alison Arnot, a freelance writer and editor based in Ottawa.