ACCOUNTING: BEYOND PRACTICE BRIDGING THE GAP THROUGH TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS

The awareness about the fact that the frontier of accounting is increasingly expanding beyond professional practice is inchoate in Nigeria. The role of accounting extends further to research and policy formulations for Governments and corporate organizations as it assumes a multi-dimensional sine qua non in budgeting and budgetary control, environmental impact measurement, forensics and other socio-political and economic policy measures. This awareness level should be increased substantially through tertiary education. There is a unilateral stereotype of the profession (in Nigeria) especially among students always tending to practice as the core of the accounting profession hence the purpose of this article is to unmask the ills of the propaganda for professional practice as the core of the accounting profession in Nigeria; and to emphasize the three parts of the profession (research, policy and practice) according to Guthrine et al (2011). There is little awareness about the benefits of undertaking research and/or policy based orientation in Nigerian institutions limiting students’ focus to becoming only professional practitioners. With this comes low number of senior academics in the field of Accounting experienced in most tertiary institutions. Tertiary institutions should be the “place of orientation” for the three aspects of accounting; nurturing and developing students’ interest, so this paper strongly rejects the overbearing clamor for professional practice as the core of the profession. This paper is based on the authors’ assuming opinions, observations and perspective with respect to realities in the academic environment hence subjective