Education training and reform

About

Education training and reform are an important focus of the Psychology Board in its work regulating the psychology profession in Australia. The Board sets the standards for registration as a psychologist in Australia and is tasked with approving accredited programs of study for registration. This means the Board has a major role in ensuring the provision of high-quality education and training of psychologists across all sectors, and to help facilitate a flexible, responsive, and sustainable Australian psychology workforce.

The aim of our education training and reform agenda is to continually improve the effectiveness and competency of psychologists to ensure public protection and public confidence in the safety of services received from a psychologist. We are committed to:

making sure our education pathways are structured in a manner that ensures the consistent provision of high-quality training.
ensuring the development of a culturally safe and respectful psychology workforce that is responsive to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and their health, and that contributes to the elimination of racism in the provision of psychological services.
ensuring that registrants holding general registration and those who hold an area of practice endorsement can demonstrate the professional competencies to ensure safe, responsive, accessible, and effective practice.
ensuring the regulation of psychologists is responsive to client and industry needs. Clients should be able to easily find and access psychologists who have expertise that matches their needs, and psychologists need to have clear ways to explain to their clients the services they can provide. We need to help the community and the profession to better understand the competencies of a psychologist with general registration and the meaning and purpose of area of practice endorsement.

Our education training and reform agenda also focuses on reducing the complexity of psychology training pathways and reducing regulatory burden to help ensure we have a flexible and sustainable psychology workforce. We are committed to:

Simplifying the pathways to becoming a psychologist in Australia. Currently there are several pathways to becoming a psychologist: the 4+2 internship pathway, the 5+1 internship pathway, the higher degree pathway (including various options, such as Masters degree, combined Masters/PhD, and doctoral pathways), and additional pathways for internationally-trained psychologists. It is recognised that the training pathways to becoming a psychologist are cumbersome and complex, resulting in significant regulatory burden for accreditation, education providers, supervisors, trainee psychologists, the Board and Ahpra. A diagram of the domestic training pathways is on the Board’s general registration webpage, and information on the accredited programs of study (1000+) can be found on the accreditation webpage.
Removing bottlenecks in the domestic training pipeline to increase the psychology workforce in line with community need. It is recognised that current domestic psychology higher education pathways are not fit for purpose and are contributing to the significant workforce shortages faced by the profession.
Improving the alignment of psychology training with registration categories. Currently, the higher degree pathway to becoming a psychologist in Australia blends training for both general registration and area of practice endorsement. The psychology profession does not currently have student registration, and provisional registration is used for both accredited placements within a degree, and unaccredited internships after degree completion. The sequence of training in psychology is out of alignment with the registration categories available in the National Law, leading to inefficiencies, complexity, and confusion about training and registration.
Aligning psychology training with other Board’s in the National Scheme. Unlike other health professions, there is no one single, short, practical course of study to qualify as a registered psychologist. The psychology training pathways are not contemporary and are out of step with other health professions.
Improving the assessment of internationally qualified psychologists. Assessing applicants with international qualifications for equivalence to the various domestic training pathways is a complicated and time-consuming case-by-case task. Removing the complexity of the domestic pathways to general registration will assist the Board and the accreditation agency to develop a more streamlined assessment framework and process for the assessment of internationally qualified psychologists. The aim is to reduce the regulatory hurdles, cost and time required for internationally qualified psychologists to gain registration in Australia without changing the minimum standards that ensure public safety.

The Board’s education training and reform agenda has five phases.

Phase	Timeframe	Focus	For more information
1	2015-2029	Retiring the 4+2 internship program as a pathway to general registration. The aim of this first phase of reform was to reduce the regulatory burden and complexity of psychology training and to ensure the consistent provision of high-quality training. This reform paves the way for phase 2- 5 reforms. Public consultation on the proposal was held in 2018 and can be viewed at past consultations.	Detailed information on the retirement of the 4+2 internship program can be found at: Retirement of the 4+2 internship program. This pathway closed to new applicants on 30 June 2022. The 4+2 pathway will be retired on 1 January 2029.
2	2019-2025	A comprehensive review of the professional competencies for psychologists in Australia. This phase of reform focused on updating the competencies for general registration published in 2010 to ensure they remain contemporary, aligned with international best practice, and to improve them to include an increased focus on cultural safety and working with the diverse groups in our society. By determining the competencies required for all psychologists (i.e., general registration), this reform paves the way for phase 3-5 reforms. Public consultation on the proposal was held in 2023 and can be viewed at past consultations.	An advance copy of the Professional competencies for psychologists and resources to assist transition to the updated competencies are published on our professional practice standards webpage The competencies come into effect on 1 December 2025.
3	2025 - onwards	Redesigning the higher degree pathway. This phase of reform will provide recommendations for a re-design of the higher education training pathway. It will consider the appropriateness and design of a single, shorter, and more practical course of study to qualify as a registered psychologist in Australia, beginning in the undergraduate years. The intended benefit is to provide students with a clearer, more efficient, and more equitable pathway to registration with opportunities to develop practical skills throughout their program of study. Finding ways to remove the current training bottlenecks will help overcome the workforce shortages faced by the profession. The higher degree redesign project goals are consistent with the Independent review of complexity in the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme (the Dawson review). Redesigning the higher degree pathway will help reduce the complexity of training, reduce the administrative burden of regulating psychologists, better align the training and registration categories, and assist the Board to work with other National Boards and Ahpra towards national scheme efficiencies. This reform paves the way for phase 4-5 reforms.	The review is being funded by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care. See our news item announcing this review. Public consultation on proposed options for redesign is expected to be held in late 2025 and early 2026.
4	2025 - onwards	Reforming the assessment of internationally qualified psychologists. This reform will focus on the developing a more streamlined assessment framework for assessing international qualifications and a more streamlined registration process. This will assist the Board and Ahpra to register internationally qualified psychologists more quickly and encourage internationally trained psychologists to work in Australia.	This reform is in line with recommendations published in Final report of the Independent Review of Overseas Health Practitioner Regulatory Settings (the Kruk review). Information on our current processes for internationally qualified psychologists is on our overseas applicant webpage.
5	TBA	A comprehensive review area of practice endorsement. Once the higher degree pathway reforms are underway, and psychology training pathways are aligned with general registration, review of the regulation of area of practice endorsement can begin in earnest. Initial scoping and research will be completed before engaging in wide-ranging public consultation.	Information about area of practice endorsement can be found on our endorsement webpage.