Education programmes' responsibilities regarding pervasive skills

Abstract

The Competency Framework of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) details specific competencies, but also places emphasis on the pervasive skills that need to be attained by candidates in order to qualify as South African chartered accountants (CAs (SA)). This article presents the results of a literature review and empirical work that provides conflicting results as to whether the education, the training or a combination of the programmes are responsible for ensuring that aspirant CAs (SA) are equipped with pervasive skills. This study returned significant findings, indicating that SAICA-accredited academics are not aware of their responsibility to ensure that aspirant CAs (SA) have achieved all the competencies as set out in SAICA’s Competency Framework. While this apparent shortcoming may exist, it is the responsibility of the Heads of Academic Departments and SAICA alike to further inform academics that the onus to transfer both competencies (specific and pervasive) rests predominantly with them.