Has anyone had a one-year Masters degree from Australia assessed by NZQA?

[herm]

Hi to all - I hope you don't mind me asking about this (it is not strictly speaking an immigration issue).

I am a New Zealander living in New Zealand, and I currently have a BSc and a Graduate Diploma of Teaching. I want to study my Master of Education, and I can either do that through a NZ university, which would take me two years full-time, or by distance from an Australian university, which in most cases would take me just one year of full-time study. Obviously, I would prefer the shorter option.

However, if I go the Australian route NZQA will need to assess this "international" qualification (it's Australia, for heaven's sake!) before I can find out where it will sit on the teachers pay scale. They have been so unhelpful and frustrating, and refuse to offer any advice or judgement unless I actually complete the qualification and submit it to them. Of course, I want to find out whether they will assess it at level 8 or level 9 before make my enrolment choice.

As far as I can figure out (from comparing the NZ qualification framework with the Australian qualification framework, and NZQA's own definition of a masters degree), it would be equivalent ... but I don't want to spend all that time and money only to realise that I 'figured' wrong.

Threads from this forum kept coming up on my desperate Google searches, so I am hoping I can find someone who has had a comparable qualification assessed, to see what the outcome was. Surely that would be a good guide ... right?

Any help you can offer at all is much appreciated

[JandM]

Hello and welcome.

I don't remember seeing this particular point come up, but there may be somebody out there who hasn't happened to mention it - here's hoping for you.

Another thought - have you asked the NZTC about this? http://www.teacherscouncil.govt.nz/ Some of our members have had really 'human' emails from people there.

[herm]

Thanks, JandM. I did try the MOE, who referred me to NZQA, but I didn't think to try the NZTC. The PPTA did say they would try NZQA on my behalf as well but I haven't heard back so I'm guessing they had no more luck than I did. Cheers .

[rizjunior]

I haven't seen any australian masters assessed but my UK one years's masters was assessed at level 8. I am pretty much sure all one year masters are assessed at level 8. You may ring NZQA, I don't think operator will help you much but if you ask to speak to an evaluator, he/she may help. You can ask for Cameron Sang to speak to, see if you strike a luck.