Nurturing Malaysia’s future entrepreneurs: Determinants of financial learning effectiveness in public institutions of higher learning

Malaysia is emphasizing on the urgency of producing a pool of world class entrepreneurs yet the usual approach that is still used by lecturers and students in teaching and learning financial statement analysis is guided by traditional financial reports quoted from given textbooks which still use the unattractive concept of check and count. The effectiveness of this technique is considered less than satisfactory as students are not exposed to financial statements of real companies and when the development of information technology has enabled financial statements and to be prepared with special softwares. This article reports results of a perception survey of students who have followed such financial courses. The results showed significant weaknesses in the implementation aspects of the learning process and the interpretation of financial information based on traditional methods. The students agreed that computerized analysis softwares based on actual financial statements from real organizations be introduced to facilitate students in mastering the curriculum effectively.