The Contribution of Basic Accounting Qualification in Producing Job-Ready Workforce

Abstract

The quality of contemporary accounting graduates has often been touted as failing to meet the requirements of the dynamically changing accountancy profession. In particular, the ability of accountancy programs to produce competent accounting graduates has been highly debated by researchers and academicians over the past decade. This paper aims to expand the extant literature on accounting education by evaluating the degree of the contemporary relevance of the Certified Accounting Technician (CAT) program’s syllabus structure in producing job-ready accounting graduates, as well as analyzing the credibility of the CAT program through the lens of various stakeholders, within the Malaysian context. The relatively static nature of the CAT program’s syllabus structure over the past six years lent itself as the motive for undertaking this study. The data samples of the study comprise CAT students, graduates, lecturers, industry practitioners, and the Malaysian chapter of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA). Results from the study indicate that CAT students are technically adept but lack practical proficiency, and that there is scope to improve the credibility of the CAT program among Malaysian accounting employers. Keywords: CAT, job-ready, accounting graduates