Lets begin with the premise that accounting educators are not stupid, and that they are truly concerned with providing quality education to their students.
Educators certainly understand the importance of cash flow to business practice.
So, why do they relegate coverage of the subject to an isolated chapter that is presented at the end of the course. I believe that the answer lies in the fact that the traditional approach to the introduction of cash flows is too concerned with the details of statement preparation. Indeed, if you are going to prepare a statement of cash flows by analyzing balance sheet and income statement data, coverage of these financial reports must precede coverage of the statement of cash flows. Accordingly, the means to an early introduction of the statement of cash flows centers on the development of a simplified method of statement preparation. In an educational setting, the statement of cash flows can easily be prepared by simply analyzing the cash account.