What our education survey found

MoneyManagement’sinaugural education survey found there are literally hundreds of financial services training courses on ASIC’s training register. Many of these are the minimum generic financial services courses, while others are specialist units in areas like risk, superannuation, investments and securities.

We also discovered that a number of universities offer undergraduate programs that carry an option to specialise in financial planning. For example, a degree in applied finance might offer several financial planning units.

However, because of the large number of courses available, our survey was concerned with identifying only those dedicated financial services education courses at the diploma (or higher) level that appear to offer a clear and articulated career path to practising primarily as a financial adviser.

For that reason, the survey does not include generic degrees that offer units in financial planning, nor does it include those courses that qualify candidates in only one specified area — for example, a diploma in financial services (superannuation).

Those courses included in our survey generally fell into two camps — undergraduate and postgraduate.

In the former category, diplomas, advanced diplomas and bachelor degree programs were the most prevalent. A number of providers offered the diploma of financial services and the diploma of financial services (financial planning). Also available were the advanced diploma of financial services and the advanced diploma of financial services (financial planning).

While we found no institution offering a degree program called ‘bachelor of financial planning’, three — Curtin University,Griffith Universityand the University of Wollongong — offer a bachelor of commerce (financial planning) program. RMIT offers a bachelor of business (financial planning).

At the postgraduate level, several institutions offer the graduate diploma of financial planning, while others offer the graduate certificate of financial services. A postgraduate certificate in personal financial planning and a postgraduate diploma in personal financial planning are also available.

Also on offer are master programs — a master of financial planning is available from Curtin, RMIT and the University of Sunshine Coast. The University of Southern Queensland (USQ) offers the master of personal financial planning. Also available is a master of commerce (financial planning) from theUniversity of Western Sydney. Deakin University and USQ have a master of business administration (financial planning).

Almost all courses are available via distance and face-to-face.