Universitas Gadjah Mada
Faculty of Economics and Business

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact, especially from the many changes in regulatory and policy aspects, especially challenges in the accounting and education sectors. Therefore, on Friday (4/9) the Professional Accountant Education Study Program, Faculty of Economics and Business UGM in collaboration with the Indonesian Chartered Accountants (IAI) and the Financial Accounting Lecturer Forum of the Indonesian Chartered Accountants-Educator Accountants Compartment (IAI-KAPd) held a National Seminar on Accounting and Regulation (SNAR) with the topic of "Accounting Education and the Accountant Profession in New Norms". The seminar was moderated by Zuni Barokah, M.Comm., Ph.D., CA. Lecturer at FEB UGM, who is also the Coordinator of the Studies Center for Accounting and Regulation. Present at the seminar, resource persons who are experts in the field of Accounting and Accountant Professional Education, including Prof. Dr. Ainun Na'im, MBA. As Secretary General of the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture as well as FEB UGM Lecturer, Djohan Pinnarwan as Chair of the IAI Financial Accounting Standards Board (DSAK) and Partner of Pricewaterhouse Coopers Indonesia, and Singgih Wijayana, M.Sc., Ph.D. as a FEB UGM Lecturer who also serves as a Member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (DSAK).

The presentation of the first material was delivered by Prof. Dr. Ainun Na'im. He said that the Covid-19 Pandemic had an impact on increasing uncertainty, as well as having an impact on many changes, both from regulatory and policy aspects, until to economic changes. He even said that the pandemic has caused disruption in various institutions, organizations or companies, so that many certain sectors have experienced a very sharp decline. Of course this situation is a challenge in itself in the world of education, especially accounting.

According to him, we are currently faced with two big challenges, the industrial revolution 4.0 and the Covid-19 pandemic, the completion of which is not yet known when it will end. He argues that the world of education must anticipate changes in the curriculum so students do not miss opportunities or learning processes. Policies must be carried out in such a way that learning continues to be effective.

"We must maintain that the accounting education that we provide to the public remains relevant to the needs of society. Because in some cases the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the process of change, or what we often call the Industrial Revolution 4.0," said Prof. Ainun.

Talking about the impact, Ainun said that all countries were affected by this pandemic, from an economic point of view, economic growth decreased even to a negative one, as well as social aspects, many people lost their jobs, changes in interactions between individuals, and so on. Therefore it is necessary to carry out conflict management between the health and economic sectors.

"The closure of activities resulted in a conflict between health and the economy. Opening up physical activities, health will be a threat, on the other hand the economy will move. You need to manage these two things in order to move together. For example in the education environment, green and yellow categories can be opened physically, can teach conventionally. Areas that are still orange and red have can not be opened, "said Prof. Ainun.

"The impact on economic changes, a pandemic affects the process of providing data and information, especially for policy makers, data is needed to solve social problems that occur as soon as possible", he added.

In the world of accounting, he argues that the Covid-19 Pandemic has had a huge impact on financial reporting. "Those affected are of course profits, then there are subsequent events, going concerns, risk issues, impairments, therefore OJK and related authorities provide regulations to overcome the impact of Covid-19 on companies," he said.

Apart from financial reporting, according to him, auditing practices have also changed, especially from the lack of direct interaction, because the audit process is carried out online. These changes require educators to continue to improve according to their needs. "These are several aspects that have changed in accounting, and of course, as educators, they must also solve this by ensuring that the curriculum runs, and student competencies improve", he concluded.

The second session was the delivery of material from Djohan Pinnarwan. Questioning the Pandemic from a practitioner's point of view, Djohan said that the Pandemic did not cause difficulties for the Public Accounting Firm. "In our KAP, the Covid-19 Pandemic is not too difficult because since 2018, work has been carried out dynamically, it can be anywhere, although there are some things that cannot be done online," he said.

Especially about auditing, he had issues related to the effectiveness of internal controls when it was doing online. "In terms of using technology, online coverage is a problem. If it is done remotely, the question is how is the effectiveness of internal control during client assessment? ”, He said.

For the world of Accounting and Accountant Professional Education, Djohan expressed his opinion as a practitioner. "There are several things that I have learned in various changes in the profession and in the office, quoting the opinion of an expert, In the world of education, the objective of education is learning, not only teaching," said Djohan. Because according to him, there are differences between learning and teaching methods in the world of education. "If we teach, we teach the content, what the subject is, like parents feeding their children, while learning is more about how to learn, how parents feed their children, that is, by giving children freedom in learning," he explained.

"The current limitations and the uncertainty future world require us to provide education how to learn, thus giving an executive function, and the output will give students success in the world of education," he added.

When asked about the effectiveness of education with the world of work, he said that the practice and profession in the world of work will always be faster than what is taught in the classroom. "For example, in the era of disruption, from the education side, the job might be lost, but from the work side it will continue to run," he concluded.

The next session was an expectation by FEB UGM lecturer, Dr. Singgih Wijayana who conveyed the issue of the New Normal era from an educational perspective. Singgih conveyed that Normality has a broader understanding, because there are so many topics and developments. From the teaching side, he highlighted how to convey material, because accounting has changed in the last decade, especially related to technology, the internet of things and the Industrial Revolution 4.0. Not only that, he also highlighted environmental accounting, corporate sustainability and the triple bottom line, as well as integrated reporting that cannot be separated from the development of technology and the internet. Also in terms of issues that continue to roll in the world of education, that the accounting profession has become an unattractive profession because as a result of technology the accounting profession is misunderstood that it will disappear due to technological automation.

The implication of this, he said that higher education must be prepared to offer new programs on campus or revise existing programs, make strategic changes in the faculty structure or management of study programs, provide online programs that are licensed or certified, and make changes in curriculum and education. Accounting and the Accountant Profession.

From a literature review, he found that the needs of graduates are no longer relevant to the long-term needs of these graduates. "Most of the current curriculum focuses on preparing graduates with entry level requirements that were relevant in the past, and not now. It is important to prepare graduates' long-term career needs," he criticized.

He added that currently accounting education is mostly still focused on preparing careers for public accounting or auditing, even though the contemporary business and organizational environment requires broader expertise and competence for accountants. "It would not be right if the current changes only focus on accounting competencies, a person with an accounting background must have other competencies that support his competence, to support his profession," he said.

He also appreciated the Ministry of Education and Culture's Free Learning Program, because the program makes someone want to learn other knowledge. In addition, he revealed that it is important to prepare graduates to have good leadership skills, ethical and social responsibility. "There is a policy that is no less important in supporting accounting knowledge, we form leaders with integrity through leadership. Being a curriculum is expected to meet the demand in society in any form, "he said.

Dr. Singgih said that in implementation, he hopes there will be continuous improvement in every teaching, there is evaluation.
"We build not only on accounting knowledge and competencies, but how to build learning goals and learning objectives, accounting learning must be able to develop leaders and support board management competencies, so that (graduates) can survive and make good long-term careers," he said.

To adjust to the changes that occur, the curriculum must be adjusted by reducing mandatory courses and adding elective courses. Changes have also caused changes to the FEB UGM accounting curriculum, such as the addition of Digital Business and Artificial Intelligence courses that adapt to technological developments, the Special Topics in Accounting Course, which discusses relevant and current accounting issues, and the FEB Excellence class, class where the implementation goes directly to the company, so that students get a direct perspective from the world of work. Besides that, the faculty can also build networks with industry. Because according to him, higher education must build partnerships with the industrial world to ensure what competencies industry needs from students.

Translator: Laras OIA