For many years I trained grade 10, 11 and 12 learners to use accounting software and saw numerous matriculants who successfully passed the programme getting snapped up by employers immediately after school. Most of these youngsters found employment in the accounting departments of cash-based businesses or in companies such as Game, Edgars, Woolworths and First National Bank.
In my experience, once learners realise that a knowledge of computerised accounting will help them find jobs as soon as they leave school, they quickly knuckle down to the lessons.
Cash is one of the most basic elements of a business and the processes for managing it are vital and complex. There is a great need in the market for people who understand and can accurately execute these processes.
Seven out of 10 job advertisements ask specifically for people – with accounting skills in Pastel – and many companies are prepared to pay well for these skills.
So, if you’re battling to motivate your learners when it comes to computerised accounting, dangle in front of them the carrot of well-paid employment as soon as they leave school. It will be a great incentive, particularly to youngsters who cannot afford tertiary education and who want to be able to support themselves or their families as soon as they can.
If that is not enough, tell your learners that today’s business world is driven almost exclusively by computers. So even if they have no ambition to be bookkeepers or accountants, they will gain computer literacy skills that will stand them in good stead when applying for jobs.
One in six adults in South Africa owns a small business, but a high proportion of these businesses close after their first year because their owners do not have sufficient skills to manage them, particularly when it comes to finances. Learners with a background in computerised accounting will have a better chance of prospering as entrepreneurs.
In other words, make it clear to learners that accounting is not an abstract subject – it provides them with real-world skills that they can put to use right away.
Best of all, computerised accounting is fun in the classroom. Children are familiar with technology such as television sets and cellphones and love the gadgetry and the immediacy of their interaction. So learning accounting by using computers feels more like playing.
Computers are an ideal way to illustrate complex or unusual concepts such as assets and liabilities. Pictures on a computer screen show in an instant what an asset is and, by contrast, what a liability is.
Computerised accounting automatically teaches learners to work in a methodical way, building their understanding from simple to more difficult concepts, thereby entrenching the relevant learning. For instance, if you manually create a bank reconciliation, it is quite difficult to grasp the links intellectually.
With educational software such as Pastel, the reconciliation screen shows learners how the information alters the bank balance until all items are reconciled. And because these actions are making a difference that can be seen on the screen, the concepts being taught become personal and learners can take ownership of what they are learning. There just is no way to achieve the same depth of experiential learning using a chalkboard.
So whether it is a career, skills or fun for the learners need, computerised accounting can provide it all.
Perdick Mzizi taught accounting at a Germiston high school for 10 years, six as head of department. He now trains educators in the use of Pastel software