Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW : 1888 - 1954), Wednesday 18 August 1954, page 11


ACCOUNTANCY & EDUCATION

' /' / B. . XA.JT I . B_I_, ."B A' . B »? \ - »

{ny w. t. Burke, ^í./v.# 0. tc; . ;

Tonight at the Technical College (while the Commonwealth Budget is being introduced in Canberta) the inaugural meeting of the Aus-tralian Accountants Students' Society will be heJd. This meeting, which is one of the activities associated with Education Week, will climax six months work by students to have a Broken Hill branch formed, and 12 months of sustained activities by the local branch of the newly formed Australian Society of Accountants. Broken Hill will become one of the few cities in New South Wales to form branches of both ac-

countants and students. .

Incorporated in the Aus-tralian Capital Territory'.on January 1, 1953, the Austra-lian Society of 'Accountants

amalgamates the former'

Commonwealth and Federal i Institutes of Accountants and, the former Association of Accountants of Australia.

Approximately 18,000 quali- j

fled accountants throughout Australia belong to it.

Other leading organisa-tions of accountants are the

Chartered Institute of Ac-j

counta.nts (incorporated by: ' Royal Charter), the Austral-

asian Institute of Cost Ac-|

countants (which extends to' New Zealand), and for sec-retaries the 'Chartered Insti-tute of Secretaries. The amalgamation into the new society has united and strengthened the several former institutes.

Objectives

Included among the most important : objects of the amalgamation was the estab- : lishment of a uniform stan-dard of accounting educa-tion. Various examining bodies had existed previous-,

Jy, with varying' standards, j

'. It was-hoped that as a result'

of the amalgamation the

number of examining bodies would be reduced. It is ex-pected that, as this objective unfolds, a uniform examin-ing standard should prove to be of advantage to students.

Broken Hill students have already acquitted themselves excellently at the . examina-tions conducted by :.the new society, winning 15 honors places within ' the last 12 months.. In addition, seven students qualified as ac-countants at the last exa-minations - the greatest number to qualify at the one series of examinations in Broken Hill for some time.i There are now approximate-1 ly 45 . local members of the new society, and it is ex-pected that further students ¡ will qualify at the Novem-

ber, 1954, examinations. j

r Impetus was given to the movement to form branches ¡

of accountants and students under the new society when

Mr. B. L. Horsley,. State j Registrar, visited Broken j

Hill in Jury, 1953. A meet-

ing of members was held at j

the Royal Exchange Hotel to discuss the foi'mation of a branch. Mr. H. E. G. Atkins, head master of the High School, delivered an address ("Education and Business")

lat this meeting. The State Registrar ,also attended and addressed a meeting of stu-dents at, the Technical Col-lege. Following this meet-ing a " group of students ¡questioned Mr..Horsley about I the formation of a students'

j society. - ? .

j Well Siifiporietl

I Both meetings were < well

I supported and; a recommen! dation made 'ät vthe* meèting I of members^ resulted "T in : the

establishment of a . branch, i Mr. Cyril G. Davison became

the fii'st " chairman and the i late Mr. A. N. -Bennetts the [first deputy chairman.: - The students' meeting tonight

¡should conclude the move

,ment to form a students'

'societs'.

I Since its inception the

members' branch rtas held

¡ meetings approximately each

quarter. A Christmas social

¡at the Freemasons Hotel was

followed by a meeting in

¡March, 1954, at which an ¡address was delivered by a

; visiting speaker, Mr: E. B. Smyth (head of thé School i of. Commerce, Sydney Tech-nical College), and by a fur-ther meeting, in June last, when Mr. O. H. Paton (Aus-tralian vice-president of the

I society) addressed members. Miv Paton, accompanied by the . State Registrar . (Mr. Horsley)-, was returning from the r Australian Accountants' convention held "in Adelaide: Mr. W. J. Campbell; (New South Wales Auditor-Gene-ral), who was in Broken Hill, also attended the June meeting.

" . The members' branch is well -booked for' -future speakers. Messrs. C. R¿ Hicking; , (Australian president) i ánd Walter D. -Scott, (a, member of . the .x Australian '< council) have promised visits '

during 1954, : and ' Mr.' W. - P. j Henson (State president) ;

will be attending- the annual meeting in March, 1955.

To give expression tp its aim of promoting research, and as its first major pro-ject, the Australian Society of Accountants launched an Australian -Accounting Con-vention in Adelaide in June, 1954. Over. 100 interstate delegates attended, and Broken Hill was represented; This was the third Account-ing Convention to. be held in Australia, the others having been held in Mel-bourne in 1936, and in Syd-ney in 1949.

AmonK the matters dis

?cussed, at : the Convention were the raising, of capital for - private enterprise under existing - economic .? con-ditions, accounting and the »public accounts, the finance of' company expansion, the application,ofIcost account-ing to fields of distribution and administration, and ac-counting-requirements " of Companies ; Acts. Contri-butors of papers and com-mentators included the Chairman of . the Common-wealth Grants Committee, various v . state Auditor Generals and Treasury officials, University lecturers in Accountancy, and last but -not least the Broken Hill Town Clerk (Mr. C. Crowley) who commented

on the paper dealing with . the public accounts. Broken Hill was thus actively identified with the Con-vention.

Further evidence of the growing interest in Ac-counting Research is the creation of two new Chairs of Accounting in England. Hie first is the Research Chair of Accounting tenable at Incorporated Account-ants' Hall, London, to which Mr. F. Sewell Gray, Senior Nuffield Fellow at Cam

bridge, was appointed..1''The j second is the P. D. Leake I Professorship of Financé and Accounting which will ? be established in the Uni-versity of Cambridge as from October 1, 1954. With-in Australia, steps are at present ; being taken to create a Chair of Account-ing: at" the University of Melbourne, and Adelaide has already ^ appointed a Reader, and Sydney a Senior Lecturer in Account-ancy.

I The establishment of Ac-counting Branches, and Student Societies.- is thus

; but part of ..a ' wider-, move- . ! merit to promote and de»

i velop Accounting Research.

It is being recognised by Universities and Govern-ments-and .by Accountan ts* organisations as well-that accounting techniques can further the development of economic thought and kn owledge in â number of important ways.

(Continued on Page 12)

EDUCATION

(Continued from Page ll)

Stenography

A review of commercial education in Broken Hill would be quite incomplete without. reference . to steno-graphy ..students, for they ¡ too have been making very I good progress. Last year

J three students passed the ¡Technical College final

shorthand speed examina-

tions at 150 words per minI ute-the highest speeds

throughout the State : at ! Technical College: examina-tions." This year Mr. "J. C.

i D. Nourse has a band of

I enthusiastic students aim

ins at sneeds un to and

above 200 -words per min-ute. ?: A day secretarial class for girls has also been commenced at the Techni-cal College, in addition to the normal evening steno-graphy, classes. ;7

> In concluding, however, let rae revert, to accounting and ; quote a paragraph from a recent issue of the "Ac-countant" (England):

-'The more closely asso-ciated the accounting pro-fession becomes with the financial and commercial life- of the country, the greater is the need for it to keep under constant re-view . . . its fundamental aims and ideals." :

To the busy accountant, immersed .in day-to-day

I problems, the pursuit of

such aims, ideals and re-search may appear to be too remote-to be of much 'account. That research may

therefore be best encour-

aged by the formation of 'student societies.

I A high opinion of Bro-

ken Hill commercial . sfcudents has been formed by the writer. Active work by a; flourishing students', so-ciety, followed perhaps by publication of results-in an accounting journal, would ' set the seal on the repuI tation those students have

acquired in recent months.