Accounting and related fields continue to struggle to attract new talent, and there are a number of reasons for that, according to Senior Lecturer in Accounting, Robyn Alcock. Robyn agrees the profession has long suffered from the perception that it is dull and boring, and accountants are just bean counters.

She said, "A lot of the problem is that most people don't realise what it is accountants do these days, so there's still that perception that accountants do debits and credits and nothing else, and people don't realise that they're very nearly into fields where they need to specialise, in areas such as superannuation, tax planning, small business advising and so on, so it's a lot more specialised these days."

      Why Accounting's Not Sexy: A Pilot Study of Attitudes to Accounting Studies in Rockhampton High Schools will be presented by  Robyn Alcock and Dr Kristy Richardson from Noon-1pm on Monday (Nov 9) at Rockhampton Campus, with link to other campuses. Details via asdadmin@cqu.edu.au 

Apart from data entry, the tedious tasks of what was known as bookkeeping are now wholly performed by the technology and software available, " ... obviously the accountant still has to have an understanding of the recording process, but he or she is not sitting doing things manually. The accountant gets to perform the more intricate and interesting tasks, of analysing and advising."

Ms Alcock said, in her opinion, the idea of accounting as a profession should be put to our students at a much earlier age, "We in the University actually go out and promote accounting and business in general to grade 11 and 12 students, but my view is, we need to be getting to students in primary school, just about basic concepts like the value of money, basic personal budgeting, and business in general. Then you can build on that as they move into high school."

Ms Alcock said she felt that the numbers of ‘key learning areas' in early high school years are such that business principles and accounting are pushed way to the back of the queue. Robyn was involved in a project with grade 6 students a couple of years ago, looking at the value of money, and other basic financial concepts, " ... it was interesting to find that they had no concept of values at all, in many cases, and that worried me."

Accountants are mainly represented by 2 bodies, the Institute of Chartered Accountants, and the Association of Certified Practicing Accountants (CPA Australia), both of which seem to be competing, which does nothing to attract new talent.

Robyn Alcock agrees unity of purpose on the part of the 2 main representative bodies will be of much greater benefit, "In my view, if this (advancing accounting to students)  is to be done properly, it has to be a combination of the University, the local practitioners and the 2 large professional bodies, joining forces and going in and putting some sort of business/commerce program into our schools that ties in with the key learning areas, and taking it from primary school, all the way through high school."