An Overview of Accounting Ethics Course In Undergraduate Program Curriculum In Indonesia

Abstract

This research describes the status of accounting ethics course in accounting undergraduate program curriculum in Indonesia. To obtain the population of accounting undergraduate programs (bachelor‟s degree) in Indonesia, the author relies on the data available from the National Accreditation Agency for Higher Education (BAN-PT) website. Of approximately 600 programs that make up the population, a sample of 60 programs were chosen. Information regarding accounting ethics course from these 60 programs was taken from each program‟s website. Based on the analysis that was performed, there are three major findings: (1) the majority of the programs do offer an accounting-specific ethics course but only a few of them who have two stand-alone courses on ethics in their curriculum (2) there are similarities from one program to another regarding the course name and (3) variations are observed regarding the course placement, nature of the course and the required prerequisites. The author suggests the programs to include accounting ethics topic in the curriculum, preferably in a stand-alone course, or to integrate it into other courses if a stand-alone one is not feasible, as well as to make sure that the learning outcomes related to accounting ethics are actually covered.