Accounting education at the Department is based on International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). IFRS is seen as principle-based standards. Many educators of accounting will have to adapt their teaching strategies and approaches when they deal with principle-based standards. They need to move away from teaching the rules to facilitating the understanding of principles, so that it can be applied to various scenarios. The purpose of this study is to explore the perceptions of academic trainees on a new teaching and learning strategy in the Department. This is done through a review of pedagogical approaches and strategies as suggested in the literature and then by gaining insight from academic trainees, through in-depth interviews, of the detailed working of the new teaching and learning strategy and the impact that the new teaching and learning strategy had on their learning of IFRS.