ABSTRACT
In this article Willard discusses questions related to the formal education of qualified public and industrial accountants. It is interesting to observe that as early as the 1930s Willard recognized the need for accountants to be broadly trained, and recommended a five-year program leading to a Master’s degree. In many ways the thoughts expressed in this article were entirely consistent with the Common Body of Knowledge study and the Beamer Committee report, both of which occurred in the 1960s. Even in the 1970s universities had not moved in large numbers to a five-year program, but there clearly is a trend in that direction in the late 1980s. Willard’s insistence that a person’s accounting education be broadly based and that the details of specialized technical training be postponed until after graduation is also consistent with the current policies by CPA firms and industrial companies of operating training centers to provide continuing education to complement the employee’s formal education and teach him the specialized skills peculiar to his own job responsibilities.
