Towards Global Citizenship Education: Implications for the South African Higher Education Accounting System

Abstract

This article builds on prior calls to liberalise accounting education both globally and within a South African context, where the accounting curricula tend to have a technical and vocational bias. The authors specifically focus on the chartered accountancy (CA) education landscape in the country, where they call for the adoption of global citizenship education (GCE) within the CA education curricula. The authors’ contention is that if notions of GCE manifest within the CA education landscape, they increase students’ chances to become liberated and empowered. Additionally, they argue that adopting notions of GCE within the CA education pedagogy is vital to the development of citizenship competencies and relational acumen as outlined by the new CA2025 competency framework drawn up by the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA). Finally, the authors contend that there are significant challenges to implementing GCE within the current CA education context, but they contend that these challenges do not minimise the urgent imperative for CA education to produce chartered accountants (CAs) who are both technically astute, as well as socially and ethically aware, within a global context.