The comparative performance of chartered accountancy students in South Africa: The impact of historical legacies

Abstract

African students continue to underperform in South Africa's schools and universities. This paper investigates the comparative performance of African chartered accountancy students from school to post-university level. The paper employed a mixed-method approach to analyse a series of crosssectional datasets. The results showed that African students have underperformed at school, university and at post-university level, although the performance gap appears to be narrowing in the first professional chartered accountancy examination. The differential performance of these students was explained by poorer marks in mathematics and English that can be traced back to historical legacies in the education sector. South African universities, moreover, perpetuate this disadvantage because they have retained Eurocentric teaching approaches. In order to remove these barriers, tuition at school and university must be complemented by crosscultural teaching practices and bridging programmes.

South African financial reporting students' reading comprehension of the IASB Conceptual Framework

“…Globalization of higher education has contributed to diversifying the student population in university classrooms (Donald & Jackling, 2007;Sartorius & Sartorius, 2013). Consequently, researchers have questioned whether there should be different assessments of reading comprehension for different demographic groups (Broom & Jewson, 2013;Davidson, 1995;Helms, 1992).…”

The state of accounting education

“…The consequences of Apartheid, legally dispersed in 1994, resulted in the entire education system still transforming. Many students arrive at universities underprepared for their further studies (Sartorius & Sartorius, 2013). As a result, there has been an increase in the number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds going to university, bringing with them new, unfamiliar and not necessarily prepared for challenges to the universities and lecturers.…”

An audit evidence planning model for the public sector

“…Exclusion based on skill shortages is a product of the entire education sector that is still undergoing transformation. South Africa's past continues to hinder certain students from accessing and participating in the higher education sector, and many students arrive at higher education institutions underprepared for their studies (Mdepa & Tshiwula 2012;Pym & Kapp 2013;Sartorius & Sartorius 2013). An assessment of the quality of mathematics and science education in South African schools, published in the Global Information Technology Report 2015, ranks South Africa in last position (mathematics) and close-to-last (science) (respectively 139th and 143rd of the 143 countries surveyed): when looking at the overall quality of South Africa's education system, this serves as a clear indication of the magnitude of this problem (WEF 2015a).…”