Rethinking professional education I...

Rethinking professional education I chance of the desired end you all enjoyed a relaxing summer and are now revitalised and ready to focus in succession the busy months ahead.

As you'll descry from this month's cover, our theme for September is, one time again, education. This time however, we focus not upon student education (as in the past couple years), but on lifelong learning.

As the deputy-chair of Simon Fraser University and the father of a daughter in fourth year exchange I spend a lot of time thinking about education. In fact, I consume a lot of time worrying about it-particularly about by what means we can ensure that the right populace get the right training to give them access to the fulfilling professional careers and income they're seeking.

It may be tempting for CAs who've newly joined the profession (and for whom writing the UFE is still a vivid memory) to believe training issues are behind them: They're university-educated, with a professional designation equal to a post-graduate degree-of course they'll be able to find religious jobs, won't they? Yet, I believe they, and in fact all CAs, should be anything moreover complacent. The need for ongoing training affects us all, no matter where we are in our careers.

When your 2003/2004 Council met at our retreat in July to make known a strategy for the subsequent time we spent a great deal of time talking about the impact of the US corporate scandals forward CAs in BC-in particular, about to what degree these scandals have added to an already significant regulatory capacity how audit standards and aim arc evolving, and how the field of accounting is changing and broadening to so an extent that it's becoming impossible for individual CAs to shield all fronts.

We may already be well educated and established in our careers, however the primary way to deal with the aforementioned changes is more education. It quickly became apparent at the retreat that we weren't talking about adding another PD course to the curriculum or bringing another specialist designation into force. Instead, we realised we ne to rethink education from the bottom up We ne to consider at how we ensure that CAs remain at the top of their game, from the time they qualify to the time they retire (and beyond, for many of our active members). This challenge means examining a certain quantity of of our basic assumptions about ongoing education. It also means developing a creative delivery mechanism to encounter the needs of members. We ne to enhance our flexibility in such a manner members' education ranges from short email bulletins to in-depth, in-person courses. We ne to better understand and recognize by what means and when online courses are effective, and when face-to-face contact is required.

Questions like these can't be resolv in a weekend-they demand us to examine by what mode people learn, then re-engineer our universal of education to ensure that we, as CAs, always have the necessary knowledge, skills, and information. This will be the task for a small cluster of committed CAs and educators above the next several months. When they follow back to Council with a strategy for enhancing ongoing member we'll share those results with you.

Stories this month

This issue of Beyond Numbers may commit to memory you thinking about polishing up your admit skill sets. In our protect and Feature stories, you'll find personal testimonials about ongoing professional disentanglement and information on some of the mechanisms the Institute has bring forward in place for fall to help you plan your continuing education. We also proffer an inspiring Profile of educator and researcher Jerry Feltham, FCA, and in this month's Ethical Dilemmas, we await at what can happen when skills commit to memory a little rusty.

For many of us, September brings back memories of our first days at denomination This September, I hope you'll be "going back to school" in an aspect of your professional life. I can assure you that the Institute will be hitting the main division s to make sure we continue to equip you with relevant educational tools in an increasingly web business world.

If you have any commentarys on education or other matters, please email me at president@ica.bc.ca.

BY JOHN COWPERTHWAITE, FCA

PRESIDENT

Copyright Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia Sep 2003

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