IAESB education standards due July 2015
New international education standards are due to be put into effect based upon reviews of procedures used during the financial crisis in 2008 and the ensuing sovereign debt crisis. The International Accounting Education Standards Board (IAESB) plans to release eight new standards focusing on ethical orientations and standards that will be effective from July 2015.
Edward Kieswetter, the deputy chair of the IAESB, outlined at the World Congress of Accounts how the new standards have been formed after analysing the impacts of the financial crash and how they seek to “amplify beyond the technical competencies onto the other strategic and critical behavioral competencies”, he said.
Accountants worldwide devised the International Education Standards Revision Project nearly five years ago and an update was published in 2012.
As of the November 2012 update, four of the International Education Standards (IES) were revised with the intention of improving clarity, ensuring consistency with the framework surrounding international education standards and also to clarify issues that were the product of changes in the environment of accounting education. The remaining standards are still under revision.
IES 1 - Entry Requirement to Professional Accounting Education Programs. Revised the principles used for setting and communicating educational requirements designated for entry to professional accounting education programs.
IES 5 - Initial Professional Development, Practical Experience. This revised section corresponds to the practical experience the IAESB feels should be attained by aspiring professional accountants by the end of the Initial Professional Development period.
IES 6 - Initial Professional Development, Assessment of Professional Competence. Here the requirements of aspiring professional accountants for the assessment of professional competence at the end of Initial Professional Development were revised.
IES 7 - Continuing Professional Development. This redrafted section prescribes the level of continuing professional development required for professional accountants in order to continue to develop and maintain the necessary competence for the provision of high quality services to clients, employers and other stakeholders with the goal of strengthening public trust in the profession.
In a recent publication, the IAESB said “the review, maintenance, and improvement of education standards for professional accountant, as well as other supporting materials, are a part of and central to the mandate of the IAESB in serving the public interest”.