The IFRS Transition and Accounting Education: A Canadian Perspective Post-Transition

Canada transitioned to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in 2010-2011. In this commentary, we discuss the impact that the transition had from an accounting education perspective, particularly on undergraduate accounting programs. Our experience was that the transition was not a substantial hurdle but that it did provide opportunity for many formal and informal discussions of the accounting curriculum and pedagogy. Canada also introduced separate accounting standards for private enterprises at the same time as we transitioned to IFRS. Therefore, accounting educators were concerned with potential content overload and strategies for minimizing content overload. In this commentary we discuss both of those issues as well as a third common discussion topic in Canada during the transition-how to teach professional skills to accounting students. This commentary summarizes those three topics that were common in accounting education in Canada during the IFRS transition.