Search

While many universities have implemented various initiatives and teaching and learning methods to embed the most in-demand skills into their degree programmes, there is little evidence in the literature of students’ opinions and awareness of these skills. The purpose of this article is to assess, through an empirical study, students’ perceptions of the skills commonly identified in the literature as important for the field of accounting and finance. A total of 462 surveys were collected and analysed using the SAS statistical analysis tool. According to the findings, the most important graduate skills are communication skills, followed by analytical skills and self-management. The findings also reveal that the language of instruction is statistically significant for a few graduate skills, including interpersonal, planning and organization, communication, self-management and analytical skills. Age is statistically significant for critical thinking skills and gender is statistically significant for leadership, technological and communication skills.

Continued professional development (CPD) has been at the centre of capacity building in most successful organisations in western countries over the past few decades. Specialised professions in fields such as Accounting, Finance and ICT, to name but a few, are continuously evolving, which is necessitating certain standards to be followed through registration and certification by a designated authority (e.g. ACCA). Whilst most developed countries such as the UK and the US have well established frameworks for CPD for these professions, several developing nations, including Qatar (the chosen context for this article) are only just beginning to adopt these frameworks into their local contexts. However, the unique socio-cultural settings in such countries require these frameworks to be appropriately modified before they are adopted within the respective national context. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of CPD in Qatar through comparing the UK as a benchmark and drawing corresponding and contrasting observations to formulate a roadmap towards developing a high level framework.