A practical take on fortifying anti-fraud training

In my November/December 2017 column I wrote that academia should expand traditional forensic accounting programs so our future professionals can respond well to contemporary fraud issues. Many universities do include additional training on identifying and understanding fraudulent activities and are hiring more instructors with practical experience.

Diane Jamieson, a student experience leader at Sheffield Hallam University in the U.K. (and a member of the ACFE Anti-Fraud Education Partnership), has taught forensic accounting to graduate students for nearly 10 years and undergraduates for six years. She helped establish both programs, which meet the criteria required by the U.K.’s Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education.

When Jamieson joined the university in 2010 she discovered she needed to redesign both existing programs because previous instructors, who didn’t have any practical experience, could only teach theory and not its application. She drew on her 17 years in forensic accounting at KPMG to include the practical aspects of fraud examination and dispute resolution topics in the programs’ designs to ensure students receive the anti-fraud education they’ll be able to apply when they graduate.

Jamieson faced several challenges in developing and expanding the two programs. Few students, in the beginning, wanted to enroll in the specialized courses.