Psychology teachers and students across the country received the news they had been waiting for last Friday. At Nayland this was celebrated with a class bake-off.

The activity involved level 2 psychology students decorating their own cupcakes and then pairing up to analyse each other's personality traits through the decorating style.  

While psychology teacher Hannah Cameron concedes that the activity was a “silly, end of term [one] rather than real science”, the reason for celebrating was certainly real. 

 After years of lobbying and work behind the scenes by the New Zealand Association of Psychology Teachers (NZAPT), NZQA announced last Thursday that it had granted approval for level 3 psychology courses to be on the list of university-approved subjects from 2019.

The change means that level 2 psychology students who have selected level 3 psychology as one of their subjects for next year will have more options and pathways for gaining university entrance, where they must gain 14 or more level 3 credits in at least three university-approved subjects.

Nayland level 2 psychology students are stoked with the news. Harri Strathern says she’s “pumped” and Maddie Cousins agrees. “[I’m] very happy. It was hard for me to choose my subjects for next with not all of them being UE. I really want to study psychology at university so that not being UE was rough.”

Fellow psychology student Ben Dodd is aware of psychology’s importance on a wider level. “It’s a university course that you can study and also it’s an ever-growing field that’s really important for the future I believe (...) Also, we need some more psychologists in New Zealand because there’s a high demand for that.”

The change wouldn’t have happened without the exceptionally hard work and perseverance of Nayland’s two psychology teachers, Hannah Cameron (current chair of NZAPT) and Gaye Bloomfield (previous chair of NZAPT). They have been involved in what has turned out to be a long-winded process involving many steps, such as transitioning from unit to achievement standards and the establishment of a teacher working group to work alongside NZQA to develop the new standards.

Hannah Cameron says it was a bit of an anomaly that psychology was left off the list in the first place, alongside more vocational subjects such as hospitality and building and construction . “Our key argument is that psychology is an academically rigorous subject that deserves to have parity with similarly academic subjects, “ Mrs Cameron said.

Universities across the country were behind the change with NZAPT receiving letters of support from Victoria, Otago, Massey, Auckland and Waikato universities' psychology departments.

Now the pair can rest easy in a job well done and the knowledge that their students have a viable pathway into tertiary education through their subject. “I’m still buzzing,” Hannah Cameron said.