Bulletin Number Three 1985

Faculty of Business Administration Department of Accounting and Finance The Department of Accounting and Finance has all along been aware of its responsibility to produce good-quality graduates to meet the needs of th e business community. The programme of studies, which has been revised recently, is designed to provide students with a good understanding of the various functional areas of business administration and with a concentration in either Accounting or Finance. Young men and women are being trained for responsible administrative and executive positions in business, governmental and other organizations. Although the emphasis of the present programme is on a broad, systematic, and solid background knowledge in business, students with a major in Accounting who are prepared to pursue a career in professional accounting are provided with opportunities for a one-year internship in a professional accounting firm. For many years, the Department of Accounting and Finance has attracted more than one-third of the total number of students of the Faculty of Business Administration, as can be seen from Table 1. In December 1984, there was a total of 346 Accounting and Finance major students, representing 39% of the total number of Business Administration students and 6.9% of the entire student population of the University. A majority of the 1984 Accounting graduates took up a career in Accounting while a large proportion of the Finance graduates had their first jobs in banking. Table 2 provides information on the distribution of the 1984 graduates in employment by career fields. Teachers of the Department of Accounting and Finance have been activel y engaged in various types of research activities. Apart from publishing papers in academic journals and presenting papers at international conferences, they are also engaged in the writing of cases and compilation of reference books. The Glossary of Accounting and Finance Terms has been revised and will be published soon. Another large-scale project is the publication of a book entitled Hong Kong's Financial Institutes and Markets, which is in its completion stage. The Department of Accounting and Finance has committed itself to a balanced programme of Table 1 Year Accounting & Finance Majors B.A. Students C.U. Students 1982-83 299 845 ( 3 5 . 4 ) 4,498 (6.6%) 1983-84 308 865 (35.6%) 4,699 (6.6%) 1984-85 346 888 (39.0%) 4,994 (6.9%) RECENT DEVELOPMENTS 5