About the Accounting Department at School of Finance and Banking

The School of Finance and Banking

Welcome to the School of Finance and Banking (SFB), we are on a trajectory of transforming into an internationally recognizing Business School in the region. We equip our students with advanced managerial and leadership skills in the field of Management, Accounting, Finance, Marketing, and HRM with view to increase the capacity for national development in Rwanda.

Accounting Studies

Today, the business community, both public and private sector, is being challenged daily by an ever-changing marketplace, increased government legislation and the new demands of global economics. To positively respond and survive in these transitional times, businesses need competent professionals who have been trained to understand, think and act. Among these professionals must be accountants who can bring their specialized skills and knowledge to the corporate milieu. In this ever changing world, business is dynamic and marketing is more dynamic but education is bond between these two which enables students to develop specific professional competencies appropriate to their specific career objectives. Besides the global change, the local market situation is changing continuously particularly in the areas of first time - adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards in the corporate sector and financial services, which may require specialized skills development in this streams, either at industry, government or service organizations and for those students who have intended to work for advanced degrees in accounting in preparation for professional, teaching and research. In this direction, the programmes in accounting are designed for students who are interested in careers in public accounting, corporate financial reporting & analysis, empirical studies in international accounting and first time adoption of IFRSs, international consistency in audit reporting, accounting for financial instruments, corporate social responsibility accounting, corporate taxation etc.

Accounting Department at SFB

The Accounting Department, since its establishment in 2004 at SFB has been contributing towards meeting the country’s demand for trained human resource in the areas of accounting, auditing and offers a well established suite of academic accounting courses, providing opportunities for entrants to study accounting at undergraduate level, and from there to progress onwards to a Masters degree.

The Accounting Department at SFB currently offers courses leading to award of Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA). It is one of the departments in which students specialize during the period of study. Currently all the students studying in the BBA program come from both private (self) sponsored and government sponsored categories. In addition to ‘Day – Programme’, the Evening - Programme has been particularly tailored to suite the needs of students who are mostly working persons and can only afford to attend classes in the evening.

Department Mission

In fact, ‘Accounting’ is more than a computational skill; courses focus on how accounting is deeply involved in the process by which management perceives, understands and seeks to change and control the nature of organizations. Hence, students are encouraged to adopt a critical and flexible viewpoint in the fluid business world and our diverse staff members have established academic expertise and professional experience to manage both undergraduate and graduate students. Specifically the department trains and exposes students in accounting and auditing related fields. It endeavors to undertake research in accounting and is looking forward to commencing social responsibility to the community.

The Mission of the Accounting Department is to:

• Provide top quality accounting education programmes and support services by organizing the group discussions, seminars, workshops and short term training programmes, the application of ‘Accounting Software Programmes’ in practice, in addition to public and expertise lectures from different industrial and corporate sector, which attract many students who enjoy productive and successful careers in their real life.
• Conduct significant and selective scholarly research in accounting and integrate it into our educational process and to offer introductory and elective courses in accounting for both undergraduate and graduate students, serving the students of other departments throughout of School of Finance and Banking (SFB).
• Communicate knowledge of the accounting discipline through teaching undergraduate and graduate students, training accounting scholars and educators, and interacting with external business and policy-making community.
• Facilitate the academic accounting programmes full time and part time in terms of providing the supporting services to accomplish the professional degree such as Certified Public Accountants (C P A) in particular, which helps to gain significant exemptions in general from parts of the professional examinations of the major accounting bodies, for example the Certified Public Accountants (CPA), the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) etc.
• Train, educate, conduct research and provides consultancy services to the Small and Medium Enterprises and other business ventures for prosperity.
• Organize an internship programme in which students gain practical experience in addition to fill the gap between Industry and Education, which facilitates the industrial placement and the students have an excellent opportunity to enhance their employability through the development of practical and professional skills in the areas of accounting and auditing.
• Improve its role in the economic and social development process of the country by establishing linkage programmes with different stakeholders from which department is able to tap resources and share experiences.

Department’s Vision

• The department provides an exemplary accounting program that is recognized for its excellence in preparing students who are knowledgeable in the use of conceptual, theoretical and practical applications of financial and non-financial information to reach successful business solutions. The Department also seeks to recruit and retain faculty who do high-quality research that benefits students and professionals. Further, the department also is seeking to establish and maintain close community involvement through student interaction with the business community as well as bring former students and professionals back into the classroom for purposes of enhancing their skills.

Career Opportunities in Accounting

• There are many career paths for accounting graduates. Our graduates are normally employed by private accounting firms and also pursue the professional certification in accounting i.e. Certified Public Accountants (CPA), and the UK based Association of Certified Chartered Accountants (ACCA). Others prefer employment in the public sector and quasi-government institutions in Rwanda. Broadly, there are career opportunities in accounting, forensics, tax, management advisory services, government and non-government organizations, internal auditing, cost and management accounting, financial analysis and also the money and capital markets.

Departmental Projections

• The department aspires to provide more flexible and market driven courses such as a short term certificate or diploma in the area of accounting, auditing, and taxation etc. and to tap the ever increasing new opportunities in academics, social and economic environments with a view of reflecting them in the program and activities to produce a holistic product "Business graduate".
• As a way of marketing our students and programs, the department continues to undertake industry linkage for student placements, research and project appraisals. Entrepreneurship and enterprise development plays a key role in economic development of any country.
• The department in supporting the Government policy framework, which recognizes the role of Small and Medium Enterprises in industrialization. In view of this, the department particularly invites for funding of projects with a practical emphasis that demonstrate linkage between academics and practitioners/business.

Research Agenda

• The department has just embarked on the process formulating a research agenda. The objective is to have a working document that will guide the department’s activities in the next few years.
• In accordance with the projections outline above, the department has decided to produce a Research Agenda 2010-2011 identifying broad research themes to stimulate application for funding in certain key areas such as:
  1. Accounting Education, Teaching, Assessment, Methodologies of Education and Training.
  2. Accounting History and Accounting Professionalization.
  Research Agenda

  3. Business Ethics
  4. Audit and Assurance and Audit Risk
  5. Financial Reporting and First Time Adoption of IFRS Standards in the Corporate Sector
  6. Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility Accounting
  7. Cost Management & Management Accounting and Financial Management
  8. The role of accounting information in capital markets,
  9. Accounting for financial instruments, empirical studies in international accounting
  10. Accounting role in securities analysis, corporate taxes
  11. Corporate Social Responsibility Accounting
  12. Environmental Accounting Practices and Policies
  13. The economic impact of accounting policy, public sector audit issues, the governance role of audit committees, international consistency in audit reporting
  14. Accounting practices in case of non-making profit organizations
  15. Advanced Accounting issues in the areas of mergers, combinations, securities analysis responsibility accounting centers, divisional and segment performance measures and analysis, corporate financial management, financial analysis, financial forecasting and trend analysis credit management, risk management, insurance, treasury, cash management, the design of executive compensation contracts productivity, efficiency, organizational design and incentives in the business organizations etc.

Dr. SHAIK NAGOOR MEERA Ph.D,
Associate Professor
Head, Department of Accounting - SFB.