The Assessment of Soft Skills in South African Universities’ Accountancy Programmes Accredited by the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants: Standard Guidelines Aimed at Producing Comparable Accounting Graduates

Description

Wanjau Dolly Nyaguthii¹ and Vusani Moyo² (Department of Management Accounting, College of Accounting Sciences, University of South Africa (UNISA), South Africa¹ and Department of Accountancy, University of Venda, Thohoyandou, South Africa²)

This research investigates the modalities of soft skills assessment within South African accounting higher education, with the principal aim of formulating a set of standardised guidelines designed to cultivate accounting graduates who possess a consistent and comparable skill set aligned with professional demands. Employing a qualitative, exploratory design, the study gathered rich, empirical data through in-depth interviews with sixteen academics from four South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA)-accredited universities, with the data undergoing a rigorous iterative thematic analysis. The findings uncover significant disparities in how academic staff select and evaluate soft skills, an inconsistency attributed to the absence of a unified framework and a predominant, often uncritical, reliance on Bloom’s Taxonomy, an approach critiqued here for fostering a linear learning pathway that can disconnect graduates from practical application. In response, the study proposes a comprehensive, four-pillar framework grounded in the principles of research-connected teaching, active learning, authentic assessment, and an entrepreneurial mindset. This framework offers a coherent, contextually-relevant alternative to introduce much-needed standardisation and coherence into soft skills pedagogy, ultimately contributing to the production of accounting graduates of a consistent calibre and practice-readiness for the South African economy.