Trends for professional education in public accounting: case Colombia

This research project aims to contribute to the establishment of trends for professional public accounting programs in Colombia, a discipline that faces great challenges due to the current context of high technological innovation, highly competitive, globalized commercial development and changes from the public policies that guide efforts to achieve higher levels of competitiveness for the country and its organizations; all factors that require the educational system a structural change, which makes it necessary to harmonize their proposals to respond pertinently to the training of competent professionals to perform in the globalized context, an international public accountant; which invites us to reflect on what are the trends that should be considered in the proposal of professional public accounting programs in Colombia?

The research is inductive, non-experimental, descriptive and qualitative cut that evaluates the current status of professional programs of Public Accounting in Colombia, international trends and the needs of the productive sector established through a survey applied by non-probabilistic sampling to 61 entrepreneurs from the country.

The periods of development of accounting knowledge are analyzed from the empirical, genesis, expansion and scientific, in which progress is highlighted to international accounting frameworks, recognizing the eminently social approach to accounting knowledge. As integral aspects of the research, the integral training for the professional future that should be enhanced from the curricula of the public accounting professional programs, which in addition to the own disciplinary competencies in accordance with the international accounting frameworks, requires to focus efforts that allow to transcend from the operational to the strategic, from the local to the global, without forgetting the implicit social function to this profession, as guarantors of public confidence, where ethical performance and social responsibility must be fundamental pillars in all programs of public accounting of the country.