The Financial Planning Association (FPA) and the Financial Planning Education Council (FPEC) have launched a national consultation framework on the curriculum and accreditation requirements for financial planning education in Australia, finding that competing professional accreditations are presenting unnecessary complexity to educators.
The FPA has been working with the FPEC, which includes several members from educational collective the Financial Planning Academics Forum, on developing a unified curriculum since the FPA established the council around one year ago.
The FPA and FPEC will seek feedback from the country’s higher education providers until 30 June. They hope to learn from the educators what their views are on forming a professional academic relationship with the financial services community, and the overall structure of the curriculum.
The review identified several key concerns, including that the multiple accreditation requirements of professional bodies and the increasing standards required by regulators were leading to duplication and draining academic support resources, highlighting a need for alignment in professional accreditation frameworks.
Among the nation’s main financial planning bodies the FPA runs the Certified Financial Planner designation; the Association of Financial Advisers has several designations including the Fellow Chartered Financial Practitioner; the Australian Securities and Investments Commission controls the minimum RG146 standard designation; while there are further external designations such as the Chartered Financial Analyst designation available from the CFA Institute.
The industry has also yet to provide a unified professional clarity around curriculum and professional needs across the varied sectors, and has not supported universities with structured professional networks, leadership and funding, according to the review.
There was also an overall lack of specialised doctoral-level expertise in financial planning and financial services to provide teaching and research.
There was a concern that because financial planning is a technically dense and highly immediate field of study, it would require a higher teacher-to-student ratio and greater academic immediacy than other single disciplinary subjects.
Increasing regulatory oversight and mandatory education requirements for financial planning has narrowed the educational content available and reduced the differences between the vocational training sector and higher education, blurring the lines between postgraduate and undergraduate programs, the review found.
In light of the review, the FPEC has expanded its work program for university engagement and will now also work on building a research channel and programs that support direct academic engagement with the professional community, the FPA stated.
FPEC chairman David Lamond said that up until now there had been no consistent model of a financial planning curriculum and no consistent approach to accreditation, but a new national curriculum would be positive for graduates and allow universities to specialise in their area of expertise.
The various competing professional body accreditations present complexity and unnecessary duplication for universities. Lamond supported the proposal to adopt an accreditation model that follows the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) approach that many business schools are already following.
