ANZAPS 2009 Abstract

The New Zealand Planning Institute (NZPI) accredits a number of specific New Zealand planning programmes offered by some New Zealand universities as meeting the academic requirements for their graduates to enter the Institute as graduate members. The programmes are reviewed every five years to assess their appropriateness for continued accreditation. A set of core planning knowledge and skill is set out in the NZPI education policy against which part of the assessment is conducted. This approach could be expected to result in a standard core to the planning programmes offered by New Zealand universities and a close match between the NZPI core knowledge and skill set and that offered by universities. However, planning programmes also have to meet the requirements of academic disciplines at university level. There are inherent tensions between the academy and the profession. The NZPI has announced a review of its education policy. As part of the input to that review, this paper explores and discusses the current core of New Zealand’s accredited planning programmes based on a comparison of the prescriptions of the accredited programmes.