Is Romanian Accounting Curriculum Offering the Premises to Form a Complete Person?

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1 Is Romanian Accounting Curriculum Offering the Premises to Form a Complete Person? ALEXANDRA MUłIU Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Babeş Bolyai University T. Mihali Street, Cluj Napoca, ROMANIA alexandra13mutiu@yahoo.com CARMEN GEORGIANA BONACI Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Babeş Bolyai University T. Mihali Street, Cluj Napoca, ROMANIA carmen.bonaci@econ.ubbcluj.ro RĂZVAN VALENTIN MUSTAłĂ Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Babeş Bolyai University T. Mihali Street, Cluj Napoca, ROMANIA razvan.mustata@econ.ubbcluj.ro Abstract The curricula of Romanian economics universities are based on the modern theory of curriculum and therefore they form experts, possessors of high competencies, and capable of standardize performances based on certain efficiency criteria. The ultra-modern period of curriculum development attempt to rediscover the fundamental vocation of the human being and to re-humanize the education. The aim of the paper is analyze if the Romanian accounting curriculum offers the premises to form a person as a complete person as it was defined by Faure. As a result, we analyzed the courses structure offered for accounting specialization at license level and /or master level for seven Romanian universities. Our conclusion is that Romanian universities are open to post-modernist approach of the curriculum. Key-Words: Romanian universities, accounting curriculum, curriculum theories, humanities, one-dimensional man, complete man. 1 Introduction Romanian economics faculties have been confronted in the last period with two great challenges: the implementation of International Accounting Education Standards (or IESs, as issued by IAESB) and the transition to the European Education System with the three degrees: bachelor s, master s, doctoral degree. These challenges, debated by Matis et. al [1], Toma [2], Nastase [3], were to analyze the economic faculties mission whose main goal is to offer a curriculum according to the IESs and to assure their graduates are well prepared for the business world. To fulfill these needs, Association of Economics Faculties (AFER) was founded in 2005 with the major scope to support the ongoing development of academic education with the help of CECCAR (The ISSN: ISBN:

2 Body of Expert and Licensed Accountants of Romania) and CAFR (Chamber of Financial Auditors of Romania). Gathering the efforts made, these organisations started in 2006 to improve the accounting academic system by implementing IESs in economics faculties curriculum. Their results are shown by the research done later. In 2008, Diaconu [4] studied possible directions of the accounting educational curriculum in the Romanian universities and the conformity with IES provided by IFAC. Diaconu s work focuses on extracting an educational matrix from IES and comparing it with the local educational matrix produced by Romanian universities in order to evaluate the consistency of the conformity between them. His findings prove that Romanian universities are making efforts to adapt their accounting curricula in order to comply with the international general accepted benchmark in the field. In 2009, Mutiu and Tiron [5] tried to identify the actual stage of accounting curricula regarding the disciplines which contribute to the development of accounting graduates as leaders. Their outcomes identified weak points of Romania s national accounting education system, which helped to steer effective implementation. The fact that the curricula of economics faculties are based on competencies means that they are built on the modern theory of curriculum, which appeared after the Second World War and still preserves the pragmatic philosophy inspired by Taylor s management centered on objectives. Even if in the modern period universities improved their methods of teaching and adopted interactive and participative approaches, which all imply a more refined way of education, the modern curricula is not extended to all the dimensions of forming the human being s personality. A curriculum based on competencies forms experts, possessors of high competencies and capable of standardized performances based on certain efficiency criteria. Therefore, universities give priority to instruction processes, and celebrate as supreme values: Intellect Truth and Practical utility and leave on the second level Moral Education and Esthetics [6]. As a consequence, the modern trend forms the one dimensional man (about who Marcuse wrote a book in 1964) who has a great professional life, but who is completely isolated from the world of non-material values. Post-modern period that follows the modern one has as scope the integration of all the necessities and values in the human personality and consequently this period is characterized by a holistic approach in the curriculum. The aim of post modern curriculum is following quite close the ancient Greek tradition. David Solomon, one of the representatives of the post modern curriculum says that any curriculum has to be established from a broad anthropologic perspective and not from a narrow one, as is the modern curriculum, divided among scopes and abilities defined in a very pragmatic and technical way. These two periods of modern and post-modern curriculum merge in the current stage of the curriculum: the ultra-modern period. The vision of this period is to rediscover the fundamental vocation of the human being and to re-humanize the education based on the contemporary situation. In 1972, Faure suggested a two radical measures treatment to be taken for surpassing the actual crisis of education that exists combined with a new philosophy of education [7]. The measures, which are: 1) the perpetuation of education, and 2) the transformation of the society into an educational citadel, can be adopted only by applying the philosophy of scientific humanism. The role of this treatment is to form the complete man, the total man. The role of our research is to analyze the actual stage of Romanian accounting curriculum and to identify new fruitful solutions for improving it from the perspective of Faure s recommended philosophy. Therefore, the scope of the paper is to establish if the Romanian accounting curriculum offers the premises to form a person as a complete person. According to ultra-modern phase of the curriculum, a complete person can be formed only if he/she studies both humanities and sciences. We have structured the remainder of the paper as follows: in the second part of the paper we presented the methodology used, the third part comprises the research results and the last part is focused on the limits of the research. ISSN: ISBN:

3 2 Methodology In order to analyze the actual stage of Romanian accounting curriculum from the perspective of multidimensional man we developed the following hypothesis: H: Humanities are part of the accounting curriculum. As branches of learning, the humanities include History, Literature, Philosophy, Ethics, Jurisprudence, Linguistics, Comparative Religion, and the History, Theory, and Criticism of the Arts. Our expectation is to find at least few of these, like History, Philosophy, Jurisprudence and Ethics included in the curriculum. Jurisprudence is defined as the discipline that studies acts issued by a jurisdiction and the principles on which those acts are based. In our analysis, we did separate law from jurisprudence since jurisprudence are offered in a separate course than law and study the acts issued by CECCAR and CAFR and principles on which these organisations are running their activity. There are many diverging opinions as to whether teaching Ethics and Professional Responsibility integrated with a curriculum is more effective than teaching Ethics and Professional Responsibility in a capstone accounting course. According to Shawver [8] most schools agree that some Ethics should be incorporated within the accounting curriculum [9] and only few educational institutions are willing to devote entire courses to teaching Ethics [10]. We expect to find entire courses offered on Ethics. We feel we have to make a clarification regarding Linguistics. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, linguistics is the systematic study of the structure and development of language in general or of particular languages. Therefore, linguistics should not be understood as being similar to study a foreign language or communication in a foreign language. To test the hypothesis we analyzed the first five Romanian universities which have accounting specialization at license level and/or at master level. We selected the universities based on the ranking done in 2009 by KIENBAUM Management Consultants in cooperation with CAPITAL Journal. The universities are: 1. Ştefan cel Mare University, Suceava (SMU) 2. Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj () 3. Lucian Blaga University, Sibiu () 4. Transilvania University, Braşov (TU) 5. The Bucharest Academy of Economics Studies (ASE) To these, we added two more universities with a long tradition in Romania in the economics area which we consider to be representative due to their history, tradition, and professionally respected professors. These universities are: 6. West University of Timisoara and () 7. Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi (AICU). For testing the hypothesis we analyzed the courses structure offered for accounting specialization at license level and /or master level for each university. The courses structure is posted on universities website as public information. Our analysis was focused on identifying humanities disciplines offered as courses and it was conducted both for mandatory, optional or supplementary courses. 3 Results Most of the analyzed universities publish their course structures for the accounting specialization on the internet. (Exceptions were Stefan cel Mare University and Transilvania University.) Unfortunately, the web site of The Bucharest Academy of Economics Studies, Faculty of Accounting and Management Information Systems was temporarily out of order due to some technical reasons in the period when we collected data. Not all the courses we tried to find are offered in the curriculum for accounting specialization. It is the case of Philosophy, Literature and Religion. The most offered courses are Law followed by Jurisprudence, Ethics and Economic History. In the following tables we presented the number of hours for each humanities course offered, course type: mandatory (M), optional (O) and supplementary (S) and the semester (St) when the course is taught. ISSN: ISBN:

4 Table 1 Law courses offered LAW Hours (x+y)* M/O/S St License 2+1 O 3 Master 1+2 M 1 Master ECA 1+2 M 1 License 2+1 M 2 Master ECA License 1+1 S 4 Master AFC 2+1 M 1 Master CAIP 2+1 M 1 Master CAIP 2+1 M 3 Master CSIIC 2+1 M 1 Master ECEA 2+1 M 1 AICU License 2+2 M 1 Master CEA * x = number of tutorial hours per week, y = number of seminar hours per week As we can see from the data presented, all universities analyzed offer Law both at license and master level. This discipline is mandatory at master level for all universities while at license level it is optional in case and supplementary in LU case. Table 2 Jurisprudence courses offered JURISPRUDENCE Hours (x+y) M/O/S St License 2+1 M 2 License 2+1 O 3 Master 1+2 O 3 Master ECA 1+2 M 3 Master ECA 1+1 M 1 Master AFC Master CAIP 2+1 M 1 Master CSIIC 2+1 M 1 Master ECEA 2+1 M 1 AICU Master CEA yes* M N/A * Number of hours is not posted Jurisprudence is offered by all universities mostly at master levels as a mandatory discipline. We observed that has the fullest course offering, among the universities analyzed. Table 3 Ethics courses offered ETHICS hours M/O/S St License 2+1 M 6 License 2+1 O 6 Master 1+2 O 3 Mater ECA 1+2 M 3 Master ECA 1+1 M 1 License 2+1 M 6 Master AFC Master CAIP 2+1 M 1 Master CSIIC 2+1 M 1 Master ECEA 2+1 M 1 AICU Master CEA yes O N/A and s offer for Ethics course is very good since this course is taught in the last semester of study (6 th semester at license level and 3 rd semester at master level). We observed that Ethics is offered as separate course but we don t have any information if aspects of Ethics are incorporated in other disciplines. Table 4 Economic History courses offered ECONOMIC HISTORY hours M/O/F St License 2+1 O 3 Master Mater ECA License 2+1 M 1 Master ECA Master AFC Master CAIP Master CSIIC Master ECEA AICU Master CEA The courses offered in the history domain (we took into consideration here Economic History) are few, only and have this discipline in their curriculum. Going beyond our list of humanities disciplines, we noticed that two universities, and, are offering Communication in Business as a mandatory course at license and master level. Moreover, offers several courses from humanities at license level, like Sociology, Political Science, Economic Theories, Economic History, Logic, and Ethics in Business. Unfortunately, students can t take all these ISSN: ISBN:

5 courses because they are offered in the same semester. Therefore, they have to pick just two courses from all these presented. As a preliminary conclusion, our opinion is that humanities are part of the universities accounting curriculum but not in a satisfactory proportion. 4 Conclusions A curriculum based on competencies is focused on enriching knowledge and skills and on developing specific behavior in order to increase someone s performance in a particular domain. But for forming a person in more than one domain, meaning to give him a complex education, humanities are compulsory to be studied. Our analysis shows that Romanian universities are open to post-modernist approach of the curriculum. This is proved by the existence of humanities in the license and master curriculum. Even so, not all the required humanities are studied. Disciplines like History, Philosophy, and Religion are not offered as courses by the universities, which limit severely students intellectual development. That is why we suggest that Logic, Analytic Techniques for Analyzing Problems, The Logic of Argumentation, Philosophy and History to be part of the curriculum, even as optional disciplines. Based on our observations, we consider that has the best accounting curriculum from all the analyzed curricula. Even so, should improve it in order to react to the students needs. As a consequence, could restructure its curriculum and could split the mandatory courses offered in the 3 rd semester (Sociology, Political Science, Economic Theories, Economic history, Logic, and Ethics in Business) over the entire three years of study at license level. If these courses will be offered so students could take them semester by semester would create all the premises for forming a complete person. If this will become reality, s students would have the hoped-for opportunity to become more than onedimensional man. On the other hand, would give its students the opportunity to benefit from a real accounting curriculum, designed based on the humanities and sciences in harmony, instead of a curriculum which doesn t fit our life expectations as human beings: a technically specialized curriculum. 5 Limits of the research Our research was done taking into consideration the disciplines offered in the accounting curriculum and without analyzing the content of the disciplines. Therefore, we can t express our opinion regarding teaching Ethics as a part of other disciplines comprised in the curriculum. In addition, our research was done using published information on universities internet sites. We considered the information posted as complete and if some of the universities failed to publish complete information related to their curricula, we considered that information not to exist. Acknowledgements This work was supported by CNCSIS UEFISCSU, project number PNII IDEI 897/2476/2008 Study regarding the development process of the Romanian educational Accounting system toward a global economic environment. References [1] Matiş D, Tiron-Tudor A., MuŃiu A., Invatamantul superior romanesc si nevoile pietei- exemplificare in domeniul contabil, Congresul Profesiei Contabile, Ed.CECCAR, 2004, pp [2] Toma M., Education Process in Romania, SEEPARD Education Seminar, Sinaia, Romania, [3] Năstase P., University Education of accountants in Romania, SEEPARD Education Seminar, Sinaia, Romania, [4] Diaconu, P., Directions of the accounting educational curricula in the Romanian universities and the conformity with IES provided by IFAC, paper presented at AMIS Conference, Bucharest, 2008 [5] MuŃiu A., Tiron-Tudor A., Are Romanian universities preparing leaders in accounting? Revista Analele Universitatii din Oradea, Vol. XVIII, No. III, 2009, pp ISSN: ISBN:

6 [6] Negret Dobridor I., Teoria generala a curriculumului educational, Ed. Polirom, Bucuresti, 2008, pp. 37 [7] Negret Dobridor I., Teoria generala a curriculumului educational, Ed. Polirom, Bucuresti, 2008, pp. 39 [8] Shawver T. J., Can Integrating Ethics across the Curriculum Change Ethical Evaluations Made by Accounting Students?, paper presented at American Accounting Association Conference in San Francisco, US, [9] Cohen, J.R., Pant, L.W., Accounting educator s perceptions of ethics in the curriculum, Issues in Accounting Education, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1989, pp [10] Gunz, S., McCutcheon, J., Are academics committed to accounting ethics education? Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 17, No. 11, 1998, pp ISSN: ISBN: