Problems and Countermeasures Existing in Accounting Teaching in Independent College in China

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1 Problems and Countermeasures Existing in Accounting Teaching in Independent College in China XIAO Wenfeng City College of Dongguan University of Technology, Dongguan, Guangdong, P. R. China, Abstract: With the development of the marketing economy, the accounting information has become the focus of the whole society. Under this circumstance, many new problems and new demands about accounting work arise. These profound changes have a direct effect on the accounting teaching. To solve these problems, this paper discusses a serious study of the accounting teaching reform in the respects such as teaching practice, teaching methods, curriculum setting and so on. Key Words: Curriculum setting; teaching methods; teaching practice; case teaching In the 21st century, the aim of accounting teaching of the high education is to train the talents with solid theoretical basis, strong practical ability and high comprehensive quality. Based on the investigation and exchanges with other colleges, we find that there are some similar problems in the accounting teaching in the independent college in China, which are embodied in four respects as below. 1 Problems in Accounting Teaching 1.1 A weak teaching team At present there are many problems existing in the accounting teaching in the independent college, which will affect the teaching quality. Firstly, most of the accounting teachers are the young postgraduates that newly graduated and lack teaching and practical experiences. Secondly, the research ability of the teachers is urgent to improve, because too much time of them has been spent on the teaching and little time has been left for research. Thirdly, the professional titles and educational background of the teachers need to improve. Based on the investigation, most of the teachers in independent college only have junior or medium titles, and few teachers have got senior titles. To deal with this problem, many colleges have to retain some retired aged teachers with senior titles. 1.2 Specific problems in curriculum setting In independent colleges,many teaching plans of accounting specialty follow the home college that it affiliated. Because the aim of independent college is to train the applied talent, which is different from the home college, its teaching plan should have its own features. Generally speaking, the similar problems existing in the teaching plan are as below: firstly, the compulsory course occupied a great proportion, and so does the politics course. Secondly, some main professional courses start too early. According to the teaching experiences, the teaching effect of the main professional courses will be affected without the enough basis courses. For example, some professional courses start at the beginning of the first semester of the first year, such as Principles of Accounts, Intermediate Financial Accounting, Cost Accounting and Financial Management. Before Intermediate Financial Accounting, besides mathematics and computer, the students only have had Principles of Accounts, Enterprise Management etc; as a result, the students cannot have a deep comprehension of the basis theoretical knowledge. Thirdly, part of some courses is repeated, or out of touch, for example, between Management Accounting and Financial Management, between Intermediate Financial Accounting and Advanced Financial Accounting. 1.3 Teaching ways and methods are backward In an accounting class, the teachers still use the traditional teaching media that maybe has been used for 252

2 hundreds of years, such as textbook, script, blackboard and chalks. For a whole class, teachers are talking and students listening. On one hand, accounting theories and practices are developing rapidly; on the other hand, the teaching methods are still traditional and unchanging. The backwardness of teaching ways and methods makes accounting teaching less efficient, and cannot meet the demand of the accounting talents that the developing economy needed. 1.4 Practical teaching has unsatisfying effect The reasons that practical teaching has unsatisfying effect are as below: First, the basis units still have very low theory level. After the reform of the accounting system, great changes have happened to the accounting field. Especially after the accounting concrete rules have been released, the accounting theories changed very rapidly. With weak accounting theory, many accounting workers are working still in a backward way and what they do will mislead student. They are unable to give students a good explanation, so students cannot combine theory and practice very well. Second, it s because of the particularity of the accounting information. The accounting information is the commercial secret of every unit, and it related to the benefits in every respect of the whole unit, so the unit must make sure that it won t go wrong. The particularity makes it hard for students to touch all the real information. Then the society practice become illusory and the students can t really participate in it. Obviously, it s understandable why the units are doing in this way: first, to avoid mistakes; second, to define the responsibility easily. The trainees will not be responsible with the business, for they are only bystanders. Third, there is a clear division of labor among accounting workers. In practical work, every accounting worker has his own business. For example, a cashier s job is to deal with the balance of payments, surplus, access and so on. Similarly, other workers are also responsible with single business of accounting work. The students are taught by these workers, who can only tell the part of his own business, and so they cannot get a deep comprehension of all the accounting work including basis accounting, financial management, economic accounting, implementation of modern enterprise system, economic reform etc. Fourth, the students go to practical units with blindness. Because the practical plan that the college issued only has a direction without concrete business. After the students got to the practical unit, they are very blind with what they should do and how they do. Maybe some students with strong theory foundation can design their own plan of business training and actual operation, but students with poor theory basis don t know what to do. 2 Countermeasures to Improve the Accounting Teaching Level 2.1 Improve the quality of the whole teacher team Teachers are the main force of the education reform and development. To improve the quality of the whole teacher team is the fundamental guarantee for a school to improve its teaching quality. As mentioned above, the quality of accounting teachers in independent college are still very low. Such respects should be noted: The teaching idea should be changed. We should consider questions on the premise of accounting education in the 21st century. Namely, we should deeply understand the importance of China characteristic and quality education, and practice them in the course setting, the textbook writing and the actual teaching. From the present situation, three aspects should be strengthened: first, the college should make sure that teachers have high degrees, and retrain some teachers with medium or senior professional titles. Second, to update the knowledge structure of teachers, encourage them to do accounting research and take part in academic exchange. Third, create the opportunities for the teachers attending the business practice of the government and enterprises. Adjust the structure of the teacher team and build one with the combination of the full time and part time teachers. Many independent college teachers are all full time. In a view of long term development, it s necessary to develop some part time teachers, especially from the government departments, enterprises and scientific units. On the one hand, this can increase the number of teachers and build the 253

3 talents reservoir ; on the other hand, this can also promote the connection between the college and related society units, and the effective transmission of teaching and scientific information will be realized; meanwhile, the employment opportunities of students will be expanded. The college should build a strict continuing education system of teachers, which can update the knowledge and skills of teachers. It is not only the basic requirement for colleges to improve the teacher team s quality, but also the inherent demand for teacher s self improvement. Colleges should give full attention in this regard, and arrange some departments and some professional staff that are responsible for this. According to the academic disciplines and personnel structure, they arrange some teachers to further their education systematically, avoid the randomness and blindness. 2.2 Adjust the course setting reasonably With regard to the curriculum issues existing in the accounting specialty, two respects can be reformed as below: First, optimize the curriculum system. In high education, there is only one specialty of accounting. Accounting students should first learn basic educational curriculum, professional foundation courses and the main professional course of the accounting curriculum, and also some elective curricula. In order to embody the compound cultivation direction of thick foundation, high-quality and quality-oriented, and meet the demand of the big economy, the big market and the big science in the 21st century, based on the compatibility between arts and sciences, the college should determine new basic education curriculum, management education courses, accounting major courses, professional orientation elective curriculum and the teaching practice courses. By doing this, set up a curriculum system that organically linked, reasonable configured and structural optimized among the various courses. Second, define the repeated content among the main professional courses. The arrangement of the main professional is flexible, which caused many courses repeated. In order to avoid this problem, we should define the repeated content. Clarify the difference between Cost Accounting and Management Accounting. Cost Accounting is to explain the theories and ways of costing and analyze the cost report; Management Accounting is to introduce and predict the theory and methods of cost management. Clarify the difference between Financial Management and Management Accounting. Financial Management is to explain financing, investment and distribution problems in the line of modern enterprises finance activities. No doubt that stock management and investment management are the main content of finance management. Management accounting focuses on the internal decision support system and it technically introduce the ways of prediction and decision analysis, such as long-term investment decision, comprehensive budget, responsibility accounting, cost management system, and so on. Long-term investment decision is incorporated into Financial Management and Management Accounting, but they have different perspectives on it. Management Accounting is to explain technically the ways of long-term decision in the form of cases; on a higher view point, Financial Management is to discuss the decision strategy, the investment scale decision, the investment portfolios, and the investment decision procedures. In this way, the repetition will be avoided and the integrity of the two courses will be maintained. 3 Reform the teaching methods and ways of accounting The teaching methods and ways of accounting are backward, which affected the training for accounting talents. Therefore, the teaching methods should be reformed. 3.1Apply the modern teaching media and methods To promote the modernization of the teaching ways and teaching methods, the college should not only change the educational idea, but also promote and apply modern scientific technology in the teaching. The most effective way in modernized teaching is the use of multimedia. Multimedia includes a combination of text, audio, still images, animation, video, and interactivity content forms. In contrast to traditional media, such as text, scripts and chalks, multimedia can expand the amount of the teaching information, improve the utilization of class, and active the class atmosphere. As a new means of 254

4 teaching, Multimedia teaching can play an active role in many aspects. However, we must not neglect teachers full understanding, the meticulous organization, as well as other necessary application of teaching methods. Otherwise, they will become another mechanical teaching method. 3.2 To promote the case teaching actively Case teaching is a stimulating and practical method, which can improve students decision-making ability and overall quality. It will not only strengthen the theoretical knowledge that the students have learned, enhance the students capacity of the actual operation, but also develop students intelligent ability and improve the basic quality of students. This method can change students from passive listening to active participation, so that the enthusiasm and initiative of students is enhanced. In the case teaching, we should comply with the following principles. First, it s the principle of purpose. Materials of teaching case should be adapted to the requirements of teaching purposes. Generally, the aim is to improve students analysis and problem-solving abilities. The teaching cases need to be designed that some focus and difficulties will have a breakthrough in the discussions, and enable students have deeper understanding of some problems. By the help of that, students analysis and problem-solving abilities will be enhanced. Secondly, the principle of inspiring. Case teaching must include certain questions. Some may be exposed, and some may be implicit, and usually some are significantly abstruse that students could find the answers themselves. It doesn t need many questions that implied in the cases, but the questions should have the effect to inspire students to think over. The more attractive in depth, the more space left for students to think about, the better teaching results. Thirdly, it s the principle of practicality. Case teaching used in the actual teaching is prepared on the basis of the investigation by the examples. Even though some details can be fictional, the content must have an objective basis. Case teaching is different with some general class discussion. Some common class discussion can be discussed on the theoretical knowledge of the different interpretations, but the aim of case teaching are not to discuss the theory itself, but to use the theoretical knowledge to solve practical problems. It requires students to achieve a leap from a theoretical analysis to the practice of studying. Fourth, it s the principle of vividness. Case Teaching must be lively, so as to arouse the interest of students and make the discussion deeper. 4 Reforms in the practical aspect The actual operation capacity is one of the basic qualities that accounting graduates should learn in colleges. In order to make sure that the accounting graduates can adapt quickly to the jobs and apply flexibly with the knowledge he has learned in the college, the teaching of accounting practice is indispensable in accounting education. Accounting practice teaching can take a combination of a variety of practice forms including in schools and outside. 4.1 Build accounting labs and start various accounting experiments On the geographical scope, the experiments can be divided two types: the school-based teaching and the combination of school-based and off-school. School-based experiments include theoretical teaching and experimental courses. It provides a more convenient experimental site for teachers and students and human and material resources can be used more rationally. Also it can be operated easily. The disadvantage is that the input costs are too high and students have to stay in school, away from the first line of production. The combination of school-based and off-school mode mainly refers to the establishment of professional teaching at off-campus laboratory. Relying on social environment, out-of-school professional teaching laboratories are to explore new ways of experimental reform. They are built by schools and enterprises after signing an agreement. In the enterprises, besides exhibition, practice, and operation, students can also complete certain professional experimental missions. Therefore, we should put more emphasis on building of out-of-school teaching laboratories, as well as the manual accounting laboratories and computerized accounting laboratories. 4.2 Set up fixed practice bases with school-enterprise cooperation 255

5 To build Off-campus bases can give the opportunity to the young teachers to practice, and create conditions for teachers to cultivate two-division type themselves, lecturers and accountants. At the same time it can provide students with practical teaching venue to face the society and the actual situation. And then students operation capacity and the ability to solve practical problems will be enhanced, while the spirit of unity and cooperation and the down-to-earth style will also be developed. On the other hand, the colleges arrange students to go to social practice, and it could promote the bilateral cooperation in personnel training. In this way, with the help of enterprises, colleges will be developed; students will eventually serve to enterprises, then the quality of manpower structure of enterprises can be improved, and the ability of technological innovation of enterprises will be enhanced. Setup of training bases.select big and medium sized enterprises those have advanced modern equipment and strong technology. However, enterprises are usually reluctant to accept the college teachers and students in internships, the reasons are as follows: first, they are afraid that practice base will become the burden of enterprises; second, they have the fear of student event of an accident and they need to take economic and legal responsibilities; third, they are worried that the disclosure of secrets will affect enterprise efficiency. For the elimination of their concerns, the college should sign mutually beneficial protocol with them, which college provide them the priority of hiring outstanding graduates, and undertake the obligations of the training for the enterprise, the school also give priority of transferring scientific and technological achievements to them, while ensuring no contact with teachers and students of business secret. In this way, through the signing of the protocol, make school-enterprise cooperation legal and formalized. Practice base can be used in the following forms: first, visit the practice base regularly to know the profile of units; second, encourage students to perform temporary tasks of the relevant units those are related to their courses of study, which can also help them pay for education expenses. Third, encourage students to participate in the day job or to write investigation reports of the unit topic; fourth, production, professional and graduate internships. References [1]Qin shaoqing. College Accounting Practice Teaching Normative Study. Friends of Accounting, 2006(4),p30~33 [2]Wang xiangying. Strengthen the Accounting Experimental Teaching to Cultivate Application Talents. Financial Accounting Survey. 2005(6),. p15~17 [3]He Cunhua. Analysis of Some Questions That Should be Resolved in College Accounting Teaching. Journal of Shanxi University of Finance and Economics. 2005(3), p23~24 [4]Chen Zhiju. Characteristics and Measures of Accounting Education in New Situation in China. China Economist. 2004,(01),p41~42 [5]Guo Litian. Aims of Accounting Education. Friends of Accounting. 2004,(08), p35~36 256