The accounting professional profile and the guidelines for a new curriculum

Abstract

This paper makes a comparison between the curriculum offered to accounting sciences students and professional profile that the market is demanding, and can identify if the undergraduate courses really prepare the bachelor in matching the demand, in order to be able to face with the fast changes in the environment and the new conditions imposed by labor market. The methods used in this study were: exploratory bibliographic research and field research, whose data was collected through direct interviews with employment agencies located in city of Londrina, Parana state and region. In the second stage developed, took place the comparative critical analysis of the curriculums of the accounting science courses in relation to the results found by means of this questionnaire. The results of this research showed that the educational institutions provide essential theoretical knowledge to the profession, with the aim of forming a critical sense and ethical. Also pointed out that the market is looking for candidates with professional experience an average of 3 (three) years and posture of initiative and enterprise. Moreover, it has been required of candidates’ knowledge of foreign language, preferably English and technical knowledge acquired in the course such as: accounting tax, labor legislation and budget planning. The research also indicated the need for a greater interest by the professional, in seeking ways to improve, and to continue their training because of the developments and trends of the modern world. We conclude, finally, that in general the curriculum meets the basic requirements demanded by the market, however, is flawed in some points, and can be solved by means of some adaptations such as: supervised internships mandatory for learners acquire professional experience and to offer them the possibility to develop their capacity for initiative, because the market has shown great interest in this ability.