Identified Issue 1: Lack of Computer Literacy Skills in Accounting Education

Accounting is one of the major subjects studied by the students in Australia. The demand for the accounting course is increasing in the students because of the growing market is providing job opportunities in the profession of accounting. There is a wide range of the professional opportunities in the field of accounting (Work.chron.com., 2017). However, not only the study of the accounting courses can help one to get the job opportunity on the desired field of accounting, but also the high computer literacy skills are required for the same. Therefore, the accounting courses are majorly based on the efficiency of the computer knowledge. In other way, the students must have competency in computer in order to pass the accounting courses as well as to get job on the same field (Maelah et al., 2012).

Identified Issue: 1

One of the major portions of the accounting course is the auditing and this section particularly requires the high competency in computer skills (ftp.repec.org., 2017). In today’s era, the world in based on the computer, rather on the technologies. The computer makes the process of the auditing easy for the professionals (Over & Greed, 2012). In fact, it is tiresome to calculate the profit or loss of a global company manually. In addition, there are high chances of mistakes and wrong calculation in the manual process. Thus, the students who desire to take accounting job in near future must focus on the computer literacy skills. This is found that the students do not take the computer literacy skills seriously, and consequently they fail in the subject. A report published by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and reporting authority (ACARA) reveals the fact that around half of the school children of Australia are performing lower than the expected standards in computer literacy (Staff, 2017). However, this fact is surprising enough as the children as well as all the people is technology oriented in today’s era, and the not having proper literacy skill in the computer is certainly not an expected matter. Similar is applicable for the students of accounting (Fraillon, Schulz & Ainley, 2013). Not having proper knowledge of the computer literacy skills is leading the students towards the significant rate of failure.

Identified Issue: 2

It is found that the students these days are not interested in learning new things from the schools. The boys basically are overconfident and reluctant to learn, whereas the girls are comparatively competent in the computer skills (Weekend, 2017). In Australia, the students from the indigenous community perform below than the non-indigenous students. Supposedly, the reason can be that the students from the indigenous community are not getting proper facilities, which can help them, improve their computer literacy skills. Again, the students belonging to outskirts of the city or remote or provincial area are lacking in the computer literacy skills compared to the students living in the metropolitan areas of Australia (OTHUKE, 2017). However, the allover rate of the computer literacy skills in the Australian students are dropping and resulting them into significant failure.

Identified Issue 2: Lack of Interest and Opportunities in Learning Computer Skills

Identified Issue: 3

There are numerous causes that are leading to the inadequacy in the computer literacy skills in the students. Not only the accounting students are falling behind in the computer literacy skill, but also all the general students are possessed with the same problem. The chief reason behind the failure of the students in the accounting course is majorly the lack of computer literacy skills of the students (Cory & Pruske, 2012). The students are lacking the competency in the computer skills due to the lack of involvement of the teachers in the computer skill activity or teaching in the accounting courses, and these results into the failure of the students (Fraillon, Schulz & Ainley, 2013). Again, the students are also responsible for their failure, as they do not give much importance to the computer literacy, which is undoubtedly one of the major criteria for the accounting job as well as the accounting course. Another reason for this can be that not all the students can afford the course of the computer on the accounting course. Another reason that can be mentioned is the attitude of the schools. The schools in Australia are taking for granted the computer literacy skills of the students and thus not devoting enough time for the improvement of the computer skills (Kalelioglu & Gülbahar, 2014).  However, the following section discusses the requirements of the computer skills in the accounting courses as well as in the job in the same field.

Recommendations: 1

Accounting is a vast subject that covers a wide range of calculations. One of the first major skills that the accounting course requires is the spreadsheet making. The accounting job requires preparing spreadsheet commonly and hence the course proposes to offer the same learning. The preparation of the spreadsheet requires proper and fine knowledge o the spreadsheet software like Microsoft excel or lotus 1-2-3 (Cory & Pruske, 2012). The person preparing the spreadsheet must have the knowledge of the formulas in the software that makes the calculation easy. If the students of are not familiar with the formulas and in the software, it will be difficult for them to prepare the spreadsheet and this can lead them to the failure in the subject (Maelah et al., 2012).  

 Recommendations: 2

The auditing portion of the accounting demands correct, accurate and appropriate information of time, management and numeric data to make decision. The reporting of the audit requires computer skills and knowledge that enable the student to easily make the report (Cory & Pruske, 2012). To make the report properly and accurately the students must possess high computer literacy skills in computer. There are many accounting software available in the market and used by the most of the finance companies to run their business properly. The softwares that are most common and popular in the companies are Peachtree, AcountAbility and QuickBooks (Work.chron.com., 2017). All these softwares are used in preparing invoice for the customers, maintaining the invoices and printing checks. Again, there are some companies, which use accounting software for preparing and maintaining payroll service of the company. The most used software for the payroll service are Paychex and ADP. These softwares help maintaining the records of the clients’ data and prepare computerized payroll for the clients.

Identified Issue 3: Causes of Inadequacy in Computer Literacy Skills

Recommendations: 3

Apart from this high computer proficiency for the accounting purpose, the basic computer skills are equally important. Without the basic computer skills, these high proficiencies are not possible to achieve. All the financial transaction of the global as well as small companies are controlled by the accounting software (ftp.repec.org., 2017). To handle the accounting software and run the same in order to receive accurate and timely report, the professionals must be efficient and competent enough.  It is evident from the discussion that the entire accounting process is based on the computer software. From the payroll to the audit, all is easier when process is trough the computerized software. Similarly, the high computer skills are required to handle the entire process of accounting. This is not possible for the students to be efficient in the computer skills in a very short time span, rather they need to gradually learn the computer skills so that it does not create any hazards for them in future in handling the accounting software.

Conclusion

It is evident from the above discourse that the accounting course as well as the job requires the high computer literacy skills. To serve different purpose of the accounting job, computer proficiency skills are required.  The lack of computer skills is pushing the students of the accounting courses to the failure. In the Australian context, the computer literacy skills are undergoing and leading the students to the failure in the accounting subjects. However, the essay discusses the different causes for not having proper computer skills. In addition, the essay also presents some recommendations of the problems, which imply that the schools as well as the students must take the computer course seriously to reduce failure rate in the same.  

Reference

Weekend, G. (2017). The Age. Retrieved 27 September 2017, from https://www.theage.com.au/good-weekend

What Computer Skills Requirements Are Needed for an Accounting Job?. (2017). Work.chron.com. Retrieved 27 September 2017, from https://work.chron.com/computer-skills-requirements-needed-accounting-job-11223.html

ftp.repec.org. (2017). Retrieved 27 September 2017, from https://ftp://ftp.repec.org/opt/ReDIF/RePEc/ibf/beaccr/bea-v5n1-2013/BEA-V5N1-2013-6.pdf

Staff, S. (2017). National report finds Australian school children lacking in computer skills. Study International. Retrieved 27 September 2017, from https://www.studyinternational.com/news/national-report-finds-australian-school-children-lacking-in-computer-skills/#liiPgWyeOvcQI6uV.97

Maelah, R., Aman, A., Mohamed, Z. M., & Ramli, R. (2012). Enhancing soft skills of accounting undergraduates through industrial training. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 59, 541-549.

Kalelioglu, F., & Gülbahar, Y. (2014). The effects of teaching programming via Scratch on problem solving skills: a discussion from learners’ perspective. Informatics in Education, 13(1), 33.

Fraillon, J., Schulz, W., & Ainley, J. (2013). International computer and information literacy study: Assessment framework.

OTHUKE, S. (2017). FACTORS RESPONSIBLE FOR POOR PERFORMANCE OF ACCOUNTING STUDENTS OF BUSINESS EDUCATION IN FEDERAL COLLEGE OF EDUCATION (TECHNICAL), ASABA. Academia.edu. Retrieved 27 September 2017, from https://www.academia.edu/12610530/FACTORS_RESPONSIBLE_FOR_POOR_PERFORMANCE_OF_ACCOUNTING_STUDENTS_OF_BUSINESS_EDUCATION_IN_FEDERAL_COLLEGE_OF_EDUCATION_TECHNICAL_ASABA

Over, H. N., & Greed, C. (2012). accounting/finance.

Cory, S. N., & Pruske, K. A. (2012). Necessary skills for Accounting Graduates: An explorattory study to determine what the profession wants. ASBBS Proceedings, 19(1), 208.