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The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of a compulsory pass in physics on undergraduate admission into estate management programme and the requisite skill for practice.

Data were collected from students in selected Polytechnics and a University in South-western Nigeria. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the data. Also, One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was applied to test the difference between the means of the independent variables and application for admission. The mean plot was used to analyse the different groups of students seeking direct entry admission into the university.

Analysis shows that 18 per cent of the students seeking admission through direct entry would be denied because they have no credit score or a pass in physics in their Ordinary Level (“O” level) result. Remarkably, high school physics is a compulsory requirement for admission. Findings show that the subject is unacceptable in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). An annual average of 10 prospective students who wrote physics in the UTME, but with a pass in it in the Senior Secondary School (“O” level) examination were denied admission at the point of registration. Findings from the hypothesis test show that there is no significant relationship between the rate of application for university admission into Real Estate programmes and students who took physics and had at least a pass in it. Also, the mean plot shows that more Art students would apply for admission compared with science and commercial students. Finally, analysis shows that 83.3 per cent of the students who have gone for Industrial Work Experience Scheme were of the opinion that physics has no role to play in their acquisition of the requisite job skills in Real Estate.

This study may be limited by the sample size of the universities selected for data collection. The impact of the requirement of a compulsory pass in physics for admission into real estate programme in other universities with a similar requirement is not covered.

The findings implied that a compulsory pass in physics constitutes a clog in the wheel of admission of prospective estate management students. This may affect career progression and the number of the Estate Surveyors and Valuers that are expected to render professional service to real estate investors in Nigeria.

This is the first attempt to examine the impact of variation in admission requirement into the real estate undergraduate programme in Nigeria. The novelty is in the analysis of a compulsory requirement of pass in physics for admission and the requisite skill for real estate practice in Nigeria.

Prior learning and prior knowledge are among the most dependable and consistent factors in predicting students’ success (Richardson et al., 2012). Although for UK Higher Education, the traditional A-level (advanced level qualification) remains the principal qualification students use to gain entry to University, there has been a small but significant rise in alternative qualifications, such as the International Baccalaureate (IB) and vocational qualifications such as that from the Business and Technology Education Council (BTEC). The multidisciplinary nature of Psychology means students enter the degree program with a range of qualifications in differing topic areas. The current case study aimed to assess if science qualifications aided student success in the University of Liverpool’s Psychology course. Ordinal regression and correlations were used to examine the impact of prior qualifications on three first-year cohort module scores (Psychobiology, Social psychology, and Research Methods) and the overall degree mark across three cohorts of Psychology students (n = 1,072). University entry grades showed a significant overall and subject specific effect of scientific prior knowledge. However, the effects of previous qualifications were not cumulative and did not persist beyond the first year of study. These findings were strongest for Chemistry in the Psychobiology module suggesting that scientific literacy – the understanding of scientific concepts, phenomena, and processes, as well as an individual’s ability to apply such knowledge to new or non-scientific situations (Schleicher, 2019) – rather than domain-specific knowledge is driving such increase in grades. A negative relationship was seen for those holding BTEC qualifications, suggesting that vocational qualifications, specifically for this Psychology program, were of less use than academic ones, even if topic areas were similar – a finding which may also apply to other academic based courses, and warrants further study. Although the advantage of prior qualifications diminishes across the course of study, this small but distinct advantage suggests that making a science qualification a requirement for a place on a Psychology degree course would be a beneficial step for admissions tutors to consider.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a contextual analysis of the professional accounting education system of South Africa (SA).

The paper uses the Global Model of Accounting Education (Watty et al., 2012) to describe the accounting education system of SA, which is then compared with similar case studies of Australia, Japan and Sri Lanka. Information about the SA accounting education system is contextualised from multiple sources, using data triangulation.

Several similarities between the SA accounting education system and that of Australia are found, such as the role and involvement of the professional bodies in the accreditation processes, with less similarities with that of Japan and Sri Lanka. The comparisons illuminate the economic development of each country and the level of involvement in the education programmes by the profession. Specific challenges in SA include the entrance hurdles to higher education and emphasis on an accounting degree.

The application of the Global Model of Accounting Education helps to identify the similarities in the global accounting arena and illuminates the uniqueness of the SA accounting education system. This study illustrates the establishment of an accounting education system that aligns with the International Education Standards (IESs).

The study contributes to the discussions around challenges in accounting education, specifically those associated with accreditation and a strong controlling relationship between academe and the profession.

The Professional Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) is one of the two main initial teacher education routes in Scotland. It is a short (1 academic year) university-based course, in which school placement is integrated, enabling students to develop and apply knowledge, skills and values for a career in primary or secondary education.This chapter explains the PGDE university provision across Scotland and the role of the General Teaching Council for Scotland in the design of, and recruitment to, the courses. The current high demand for places on PGDE Primary courses is not mirrored in PGDE Secondary, in which there are many ‘hard-to-fill’ subjects, leading to varied recruitment to, and selection of, applicants to the courses. The PGDE is acknowledged to be intense and demanding and yet remains a popular, viable route; this chapter discusses reasons for its appeal over the undergraduate route.

The general context for this paper is access to higher education (HE) in the UK but the particular concern is participation. An important distinction is drawn between access and participation. The heterogeneous characteristics of HE and the complex choice processes of applicants mean that a finer level of description and analysis is required which goes beyond aggregate measures of access and examines the extent and the nature of participation. Equality of opportunity provides the underpinning for this paper, access to HE is the starting point, the focus is on participation and the approach is empirical and pragmatic. In 2002, the target for access to UK HE was set at 50 percent, which requires attention to shift from broad measures of access towards detailed measures of participation; particularly when the agenda is one of social inclusion, and when certain groups within society are still significantly under‐represented and disadvantaged at the level of participation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the actions of the accounting profession, the state, universities, and academics have inhibited the development of South African accounting research.

A multiple history approach using traditional archival material and oral history is used.

Since the late nineteenth-century, a network of human and non-human actors has ensured that accounting education in South Africa retained a technical focus. By prescribing and detailing the accounting syllabuses required for university accreditation, the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) and its predecessors exercise direct control over accounting education. As a result, little appetite exists for a discipline based on academic enquiry or engagement with international scholars. While the SAICA claims to support accounting research, this support is conditional on its meeting the professional body’s particular view of scholarship.

The limitations associated with this research are that it focusses on one particular professional body in one jurisdiction. The South African situation provides a cautionary tale of how universities, particularly those in developing countries, should take care not to abdicate their responsibilities for the setting of syllabi or course content to professional bodies. Accounting academics, particularly those in a developing country currently experiencing major social, political, and economic problems, are in a prime position to engage in research that will benefit society as a whole.

Although actor network theory has been used in accounting research and in particular to explain accounting knowledge creation, the use of this particular theoretical lens to examine the construction of professional knowledge is limited. This study draws on Callon’s (1986) four moments to explain how various human actors including the accounting profession, the state, universities, and accounting academics, along with non-human actors such as accreditation, regulation, and transformation, have brought about South African academic disengagement with the discipline.

Examines the training needs of practising professional librarians in the Kenyan public university libraries. There is a general, but false assumption, in this sector that professional librarians who have attained the minimum professional qualifications need no further training on the job. Many changes have taken place and many more are likely to occur, which are likely to affect the working environment of librarians. Librarians must be trained in preparation for managing such changes. Suggestions for sources of funding are given. The specific training needs of practising librarians are described.

This paper considers the relationship between pre‐ and post‐technology assisted teaching and learning (TATL) based on models of learning, the learning context, programme design and the establishment of evaluation criteria. It hypothesises that current communication management theory and practice faces an opportunity and a threat but that the subject discipline can meet the challenge of the internet through ongoing academic/professional partnerships. The purpose of this paper, in raising awareness about current research issues being debated in colleges over course planning and design, is to see where to go from here and what contributions can be offered by academics, practitioner consultants and students. The medium is not the message and delivery must be learner‐centred, allowing for reflection and adaptation at all times. The technical aspect of subject‐based criteria‐setting through benchmark design is outside the scope of this paper and can be revisited. Nevertheless, benchmarking per se is standard validation practice for all academic courses and the author's hypothesis points to the dangers of underestimating the difficulties associated with this element of distance learning for new and evolving interdisciplinary studies such as public relations, where even semantics are problematic. For example, in this post‐technological era, multinational companies are renaming their public relations departments ‘corporate communications’ or ‘corporate relations/corporate affairs’, to better reflect reality and the functional role played in terms of integration, monitoring and evaluation of and within corporate strategy. Those companies in which the dominant focus for public relations was marketing in the recession driven 1980s are finding the 1990s paradigm shift more complicated than envisaged. They are finding that meaning and message is more than a clichéd slogan or soundbite, especially where corporate policy is still driven more by customer relations than, say, employee or government relations. As a consequence of technology (medium/multimedia) and human networking (message/meaning) via the internet, the pressure of a new world order affects everyone in one form or another. The race is on for global corporate and cultural domination, what some sociologists call the ‘new imperialism’. This inevitably brings conflict, along with a range of developmental arguments about context, consensus and other issues. The implications and range of arguments surrounding the sample of models selected here are vast. The models themselves are therefore presented as concepts rather than analytical tools or techniques. However, with the subject so topical at the moment, no doubt this and other journals will see the publication of a debate in future issues around technology assisted teaching and learning for business communication and public relations and the emergence of some valuable subject specific aids to lifelong learning for students, teachers and trainers alike. Teaching is a ‘rhetorical activity … it is mediated learning, allowing students to acquire knowledge of someone else's way of experiencing the world’. The British qualification to date has been the Communication, Advertising and Marketing Diploma (CAM). Now that some of the tools of public relations are taught to marketing students under the auspices of the UK Chartered Institute of Marketing, the UK's Institute of Public Relations, in its 50th birthday year, recognises that the profession must get to grips with the changes wrought by this and the growth of the digital arts industry, although it has placed its own diploma squarely within the management discipline for purposes of future professional membership. Regardless of student background, so long as candidates meet university entry requirements and universities abide by national quality assurance criteria, professional partnership programmes in this field, delivered by distance learning mode through the medium of the internet and other techniques, will mirror the strengths and weaknesses of those in more established fields. Novices become experts through a combination of knowledge and skill in all professions and all professions are struggling with the impact of technology. Differences between theory and practice are justifiably losing their deterministic significance through mutual respect, understanding and accessibility to and from a wider reach via the internet.