Sabina, a psychology graduate who lives in Au, worked on this material. To the best of our knowledge, we have tried to put on paper what we know about the process of equivalence of psychology studies. Here’s what came out: The
equivalence of psychology studies is done by the Australian Psychology Society – APS (www.psychology.org.au). To find out concrete information from the source, go to the Membership site, access the Assessing Psychology Qualifications module and read the information there. Or more directly: https://www.psychology.org.au/join/assess_psych_qual/default.asp
APS equates studies for four job categories (categories passed in SOL):
– Clinical Psychologist
– Organizational Psychologist
– Educational Psychologist
– Psychologists – not elsewhere classified The
score obtained if you receive a favorable equivalence (equivalent to 6 years of Australian studies) is 60 points for any of the 4 categories mentioned above. You can find the form in pdf format: https://www.psychology.org.au/join/assess_psych_qual/assessment_application_form.pdf
As documents, the file must contain:
– documents related to studies (bachelor’s degree, college diploma, master’s degree, transcripts and analytical programs from college and master’s degree, various certificates from the courses I attended, certificate of membership in the Romanian Association of Psychologists, recommendations to professors, internship certificates, explanations and descriptions of the dissertation)
– documents related to the job, professional experience (recommendations from current and former bosses, detailed job descriptions, recommendations from former and current colleagues, CV) . You can also put any licenses from the Association of Psychologists or from the College of Psychologists that give the right of free practice in accordance with the legislation in force (and in continuous change) in Romania.
In general, the equivalence of studies does not last more than three months (officially announced the duration is 8 weeks), if you do not ask for other data. I was asked, for example, to send them a clearer description of the dissertation, to be stamped by the faculty, and to have the examiners passed with their qualifications.
The summary of the dissertation paper should not be long, but very clearly expressed, so that they understand what the topic of the paper is, what the hypothesis started from, what was done and what conclusion was reached.
The table of contents must also contain the titles and subtitles of the chapters and the corresponding page number in the paper.
The list of supervising professors and examiners in the dissertation must contain clear information: name and surname, title (doctor, lecturer, associate professor, professor, etc.), the faculty and university where he works and what position he has there, for example if he is head department or something else), to which associations and other specialized organizations he is affiliated and if he holds any “leading” position in such an organization.
Regarding the processing time, it is good to watch when they take their money from the card, because only after that the processing usually starts. It happened to “forget” the file somewhere and only after an e-mail with questions about payment (if there are problems they did not take their money after a few weeks since the application reached them) and the normal processing time, they reply immediately by e-mail and in 2 days they sent the answer.
Equivalence costs AUD 600 for emigration (information valid until May 31, 2005), and payment can be made by credit card. I can recommend a Taifun card at BancPost.
Having only completed college, regardless of duration (4 or 5 years) and seniority and work experience, is not equivalent to 6 years of Australian studies. At least another 1.5 years of master’s degree is required to cover the entire program that APS requires you to master.
Also, if you have not submitted all the required documents in the file, APS will not reject your application from the first. It is good that they tell you what to add so that the application is complete and can be processed by them.
From experience, I suggest you pay close attention to details, to give a lot of details, either in the CV or in the job descriptions (if you have the opportunity to work on them).
Be sure to write somewhere what you sent because they are in the habit of asking you for another line of documents as well, just to check if the translations are the same. Or keep another row of identical documents in an envelope, as you will need the DIMIA file anyway and then it is good to have another row when you arrive in Australia.
As for the checks they do, so far nothing has happened to me, to call companies or college. From what I have read before, they make checks through our Ministry of Education, and those who graduated from the State Faculty of the University of Bucharest are more likely to be equivalent. There is a list of universities in Romania recognized by them. Only state universities (Bucharest, Iasi, Timisoara and Cluj) are on that list. Unfortunately, we do not know exactly on which site the list is, but when we find it, we will add it.
I hope that this approach will be beneficial to those who are just starting out, but we advise you not to sleep on one ear, to document yourself and to share with everyone else.
Good luck!
Iulia and Sabina