It’s that time of year again. The frenetic experience that is marking and exam boards is slowly fading from the memory and the glorious celebration that is graduation still lies ahead. It can mean only one thing – the ICAEW Higher Education Institutions (HEI) Conference is on hand to brighten our day, and to give us food for thought to inspire our preparation over the summer.
It started, as always, with a warm welcome. Over coffee and mini pastries, the Great Hall was buzzing with chatter as people were greeting colleagues and meeting new people. Even for those of us who might have to take a huge gulp of breath before facing a room full of people we don’t know, it’s a relaxed and friendly environment with plenty to chat about to get the conversation started.
Will Holt, the Managing Director of Education and Training at ICAEW, opened the conference with thought-provoking words about the future of the profession and things we need to be considering in higher education. This set us up perfectly for the interesting day ahead.
Shaun Robertson took over to give us some highlights of the Next Generation ACA. It was a good opportunity to not only think about the syllabus changes, but also the wider requirements students need to complete to become ACA qualified. The ICAEW ethics programme and the introduction of a sustainability and ethics paper in the qualification reminded us of the importance of trying to instil in our students how essential ethics and sustainability are to the profession. Having a paper that brings these topics into the spotlight early on, as well as continuing to include them throughout the syllabus, can help us emphasise this importance to our students.
We then went on to what was my favourite part of the day, an introduction to a new ICAEW film ‘Crossing The Line’. These films are such a useful teaching tool. They illustrate the subtleties of life in the workplace where decision making isn’t quite as clear cut as it might seem in the classroom. Students are really engaged by the format and learn a lot through not only from watching the films, but also from the subsequent discussion of the issues. The suite of films covers a whole range of issues including technical financial reporting, professional scepticism, sufficient appropriate evidence, ethics, professional responsibilities, economic crime… I could go on. ICAEW Partners in Learning have access to these training films and I’d highly recommend taking a look if you haven’t already.
In the afternoon, we had a choice of interesting sessions to attend including embedding sustainability into the curriculum, the impact of AI on the profession, unedited career conversations for future leaders, using roleplay to teach accounting and an opportunity to meet the ICAEW early careers team. It was a showcase of excellent practice and innovation going on; a great opportunity to find ideas to incorporate into our own practice.
The final session was a delight from Toby York and Jenni Rose, who gave us a welcome opportunity to reflect upon the day. Among other things, they encouraged us to be part of the thriving accounting academic community to better help us support our students to be prepared for the ever-changing future of the profession. We’re all facing the same challenges – sharing ideas, problems, solutions and supporting each other not only helps us improve our practice, it also hopefully makes it a little more fun along the way.
Same again next year? Can’t wait.
*the views expressed are the author's and not ICAEW's