Less than one-fourth of college accounting professors can incorporate international accounting rules into their accounting instruction this year in any significant way, according to the results of a survey of 535 accounting faculty conducted by the American Accounting Association and KPMG.

Just 22 percent said they are ready to teach International Financial Reporting Standards now, while 62 percent said that they have not taken any significant action steps. The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed all public companies in the United States be required to file financial statements under IFRS by 2016.

Education and training is one of the milestones etched into the SEC’s proposed roadmap to transition U.S. capital markets to the international rule book. But changes in college curricula occur slowly, says Bea Sanders, national director of faculty relations for KPMG. “It doesn’t change overnight,” she says. The U.S. move toward IFRS “all happened so quickly this past year,” she adds.

Survey results suggest professors who are learning about the U.S. shift have some work to do bringing college administrators up to speed on the importance of adapting curricula. Some 38 percent of the professors indicated administrators responsible for allocating resources have little or no understanding of the effort needed to make the change; only 23 percent said administrators understand the change well.

Big 4 accounting firms KPMG, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and PricewaterhouseCoopers have established a number of initiatives to help professors get up to speed. “We’re all doing as much as we can,” notes Sanders. “Faculty are in fact moving forward with doing this, and quite a few faculty have started the process of integrating course materials into heir courses. That’s a good sign.”

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