Sustainability education in Australian universities and colleges in 2000s.

• Author: Wong, Shirley
• Position: Report

1. INTRODUCTION

   There is an urge for restructuring accounting courses to broaden the content of the curriculum by professional accounting bodies such as the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Humphrey (2005) commented that the accounting curriculum could not reflect the situation of the business environment. One suggestion to overcome this was to incorporate environmental accounting into the accounting course to highlight the accountant's role in companies' strategies to tackle environmental issues (Grinnell and Hunt, 2000).

   In response to the demand for graduates with specialized knowledge in sustainable practices in accounting and business, the Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE developed the bachelor of accounting integrating accounting with sustainability studies, science and engineering. The degree is an industry-oriented course with a focus on problem-based learning aiming to equip students with the analytical skill to resolve real-world business and sustainability issues.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

   In U.S.A. there are calls to reform accounting education integrating environmental accounting into accounting courses. Yakhouet al. (2002) carried out a research into the environmental accounting coverage in the accounting curriculum in the U.S. universities and colleges. He discovered that a minority of the respondents favored environmental accounting being offered as a separate course. A majority of the respondents stated that they preferred to integrate the topic into a range of sub disciplines in accounting.

   Matten et al. (2004) conducted a research on corporate social responsibility education in Europe. He found that about two-thirds of respondents offered single modules or executive and short courses in corporate social responsibility. There was a concern that the Bachelor course is the course level with the lowest proportion of corporate social responsibility programs. Various teaching activities such as seminars, industry speakers, special events and conferences were designed in the course. Guest lecturers from other universities were less often invited to share their experience with students. Only a few institutions offered scholarships to attract students to enroll in the course. Concerning quality of teaching, engaging teaching approaches such as discussion were adopted.

   Stevenson (2002) undertook a research project on changes in social and environmental accounting teaching in UK and Irish Universities between 1993 and 1998. His finding concluded that over half of the respondents introduced social and environmental accounting topic as a full or substantial element of a course. There was only 29% of respondents not adopting any social and environmental teaching at their organizations.

   In Australia, Mangion (2006) conducted a research into undergraduate education in social and environmental accounting in Australian universities. She found that a majority of the respondents included social and environmental accounting elements as part of the content of subjects...