The South African Institute of Professional Accountants (SAIPA) estimates that the country has a skill shortage of more than 20 000 accountants.
In a statement on Thursday, it said that as a result, South Africa’s economy was “effectively handicapped”.
SAIPA called for greater awareness in an effort to boost the number of accounting graduates.
“We believe lack of awareness is a part of the problem,” SAIPA executive Navin Lalsab said.
“That’s why we at SAIPA are focusing our efforts on increasing knowledge of the options that learners have in terms of the accounting profession — opportunities that we believe will assure them of long-term, lucrative employment,” he said.
In an effort to educate young people, SAIPA had become involved in an awareness project among high schools in Limpopo.
“It started just last year, but we’ve already seen a difference among learners who’ve switched their subjects to accounting and maths as a result of our visit to their schools,” Lalsab said.
The awareness of viable career options was very low among pupils in previously disadvantaged communities, and particularly those in rural areas, he said.
Over the past two months, SAIPA had also joined forces with the Association for the Advancement of Black Accountants of Southern Africa to give presentations to schools in Gauteng.
“So far we’ve visited Diepsloot and Tembisa townships where the response has been phenomenal,” Lalsab said.
Although both projects were in their pilot phases, the intention was to expand them to areas around the country.
In addition, SAIPA’s annual National Accounting Olympiad — the only one of its kind in the country — was highly effective as a tool to spread the message.
“Many learners have actually decided to become Professional Accountants (SA), having found out more about the career through this intervention,” Lalsab said.
SAIPA’s awareness campaign also extended to universities where third-year students were educated as to the choices when becoming Professional Accountants (SA) and what SAIPA could do to assist them in developing their careers.
“Many students wish to start earning as soon as they’ve finished their degrees, so for them the realisation that they can do their Professional Accounting (SA) learnerships over three years, while earning, comes as very good news.”
As with the schools, SAIPA’s strategy for generating awareness at universities has been to focus on previously disadvantaged institutions, such as the universities of Fort Hare, Walter Sisulu, Zululand and Venda where it has started the process of accrediting faculties. — Sapa