Abstract
With less than 100 registered Indigenous accountants in Australia compared to an estimated 200,000 non-Indigenous people in the field, there is serious underrepresentation of the Indigenous population in the profession. There are many imperatives for increasing the number of Aboriginal people in accounting, but the barriers that individuals face before or upon entering the field are formidable. Therefore, the development of enabling programs in higher education is essential. The objective of this research is to develop a curriculum for the Indigenous Pre-Accounting Enabling Program at Charles Darwin University (CDU) in Darwin, Australia that is culturally empowering, breaks down the barriers for entering university, motivates Indigenous students to study accounting, links students to Indigenous professionals, offer gateways into the industry, and establishes a community of Indigenous students online and on campus. The novelty of the program is its early involvement of Indigenous accountants as role models as well as Indigenous corporations, regulators of Indigenous businesses (such as the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations) and accreditation bodies such as the Chartered Professional Accountants and Chartered Accountants. The methodology used for this study applies decolonisation techniques within a Critical Utopian Action Research (CUAR) framework of sharing circles and dreaming about a better future for Indigenous accountants and social enterprise. Although the curriculum was designed based on the accounting profession, the approaches used are relevant for other vocations.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-14 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education |
| Volume | 51 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 28 Jul 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors wish to acknowledge collaboration from the University of New South Wales (Indigenous Pre-Business and Indigenous Pre-Law courses) and Charles Darwin University (Indigenous Pre-Law Program), as well as Indigenous Accountants Australia. Development of the program has been the product of the efforts of many parties referred to in this article. The authors are grateful to the partners for their investment and generous input. In alphabetical order, they are: Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, Chartered Professional Accountants, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Indigenous Accountants Australia, Indigenous Business Australia, Ironbark Aboriginal Corporation, Mabunji Aboriginal Resource Centre, Merit Partners, Moore Stephens Accountants, North Australia Aboriginal Corporation (which is the main operational arm of the Aboriginal Investment Group), North Australian Aboriginal Family Legal Service, Northern Territory Regional Office of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, Northern Territory Treaties Commission, Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations, Outback Stores, Maria Randazzo and Randazzo Properties (through the Tony and Giovanna Randazzo Scholarship), Paperbark Woman, Traditional Credit Union and Westpac Group.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author/s 2022.