VERSION|0.5.1|SUBJECT|Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic and Inter-Religious Studies, Assistant Principal for Religion and Society, New College on the Mound, University of Edinburgh|CONTENT|[b]Rating[/b] 2 out of 5 (A little platitudinous)

[url=http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap130104.html][img=images/2013/01/pic130104.jpg popup=false float=right][/url]Aspiring middle class Asian families used to try to get into Medicine as a career. If they couldn't manage that, then Law was an acceptable alternative. If you were a real dumb, no-hoper then you'd have to settle for accountancy. Nowadays, things have changed radically - accountancy is now a far more respectable profession.

David Willetts wants more [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20898608]white, working class boys[/url] to go to university because of the country's desperate shortage of accountants. There just aren't enough Asian families to make up the shortfall in accountancy.

Yet I wonder if there isn't a wider problem here. We need to encourage people from all backgrounds to value accountancy for its own sake. How many families proudly display a hardback copy of this year's tax regulations on the their living room bookshelves?

Too many young people today think that studying anything other than theology will dilute their study of the Invisible Magic Friend, but I have discovered that there are subjects other than theology, some almost as useful. There is science, art, literature, philosophy and, the second most important subject of all, after theology, accountancy.

As it says in one of the nice bits of the Koran, "Oh, Invisible Magic Friend, give me the wisdom to construct barely legal tax avoidance schemes that will baffle the sorely understaffed HM Revenue and Customs."

Discovery, knowledge, learning, these are the things that can transform a person for life, taking in the callow, carefree youth, and metamorphosing them into a glorious, beautiful accountant.

[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p013bs96]Listen/Read[/url]|CATEGORIES|1|IP-ADDRESS|94.168.119.214|CREATEDBY|admin|DATE|1357290252
