Isteaching ethics essential for chartered accountants?: Reflections of lecturers based at Ukzn and Unizulu, South Africa

Changing social and economic conditions have led to the change in thte accounting curriculum over the years; for example, a lot is now covered in accounting courses on financial frauds and crimes and issues of financial security and ethics. Several wellknown financial frauds such as scandals like Enron, KPMG, and Satyam are common knowledge of ordinary citizens of the world today. Most of these frauds are attributed to not applying accounting principles in an ethical manner and accounting was misused to cover the truth. Lack of ethics is believed to be responsible for most of these scandals. Teaching of ethics from the early period of traning of Chartered Accountants is hence recommended by Accounting Bodies of the world. This study, therefore, aims at understanding the reflections on the issue of ethics in teaching accounting. The study followed a case study approach and involved a small sample of accounting lecturers from both University of KwaZuluNatal (UKZN) andUniversity of Zululand (UNIZULU) of South Africa. The findings of the study suggest that special topical issues on ethics should be inculcated in each accounting course. For example, in the auditing course, ethical procedures should be touched upon and students should be sensitized about the ethical behaviour of accountants.