But if accountancy acts purely in its own self-interest then it is not a profession at all but is more like the Guilds of old, and like them if it acts as they did in monopolistic fashion to exploit others for their own gain then that is an invitation for their abolition as regulators.
Network engineering is not a glamorous profession, and the physical structures of the greatest network ever built lack the grandeur of a hydroelectric dam or a continent-spanning railway.
Of course, those that consider themselves true sangomas claim that is because it is not merely a profession but a spiritual calling.
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Today, that is a calling, not a true profession.
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The GMC found that Dr Abdullah did not pose a risk to patients and that confidence in the profession had not been undermined as a result of her actions.
But the assumptions underpinning their approach have fallen out of favour recently - among economic commentators, if not the profession as a whole.
This is not a uniquely British problem: accounting is a global profession and it needs a global solution.
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Doctors are not the only profession seeing a rise in complaints made against them.
Nearly one in three people who trains to be a teacher in England does not go on to work in the profession, a report suggests.
For many years, marketing was a not seen as an admirable profession.
The growth of internet use and the emergence of easy-to-use publishing tools could well be the best thing that has happened to journalism since radio and then television offered new ways to reach people, but that requires a certain degree of modesty and a great willingness to learn on the part of a profession that is not noted for either attribute.
She told The Andrew Marr Show that one of the emails she had received said "the nursing profession is no longer the caring profession" while another said "since they made nursing a degree course the wrong kind of people are entering the profession... we do not need a load of snooty-nosed pen pushers".
This is not how you attract good people to a profession, or how you guarantee a good education experience for your children.
In classrooms and other educational settings, this behavior would never be tolerated and indeed would mean expulsion from an entire profession, not just from a job.
For parents who are self-employed, business owners, or in a profession where income is not consistent from year to year, it may be more difficult to provide estimated figures.
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They identified education as a profession where labor productivity was not amenable to improvement through technological advance.
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He also said the performance management system for the teaching profession was not intended to be a bureaucratic process.
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No, job security is not the only important factor, but in a profession with lower pay and less advancement options, benefits and job security are important.
The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said when he launched the education commission report this week that it should not be taken as a criticism of the teaching profession of today.
In a perfect world barbers would not need a license to cut hair, lawyers would not need expensive law degrees, and teachers could enter the profession with whatever relevant life experience they had accrued.
Yet, providing professional skills to meet critical community needs is a win for any industry, not just the legal profession.
Cynics among the teaching profession might be surprised that this was not a glad-handing, promotional trip, but was an assiduous and unglamorous trawl of the German education system.
Also, the line separating freedom of speech and inappropriate postings can be unclear - for example, derisive comments about a student's institution or profession might not be considered unprofessional by some, they said.
That a few crooks and morons inhabit any profession does not render that profession wholly criminal or incompetent.
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The mayor of Venice, Massimo Cacciari, who is a university teacher of philosophy by profession, is not impressed by the Mafia theory.
Despite perching on the shoulder of history, Sharapova insists such landmarks do not dominate her every thought, though a newfound dedication to her profession was brought into sharp focus due to a serious injury.
In 1957, when he was still attending university, Charles B suffered the first in a series of black depressions so debilitating that he asked that his name be withheld, so as not to alarm his clients (he is an American in a profession that requires intimacy and trust).
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These figures, however, do not take into account the number of teachers leaving the profession for a variety of reasons such as retirement, illness, or career change.
The leaders of the health care industry and the medical profession, not to mention the political establishment, have a single, all-purpose response they fall back on whenever somebody suggests that the United States might usefully study foreign health care systems: "But it's socialized medicine!"
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