Diploma in Town Planning

The Diploma of Town Planning has been designed to provide an opportunity for university study for people who may never have considered nor undertaken university study before.

It also provides a pathway to further university study.

Course Aims

The Diploma of Town Planning seeks to provide a formal qualification at tertiary level in the area of urban and regional planning and is designed to broaden knowledge and provides a pathway for further university study.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this course, students will be able to: demonstrate a technical and theoretical body of knowledge in urban and regional planning, including deep understanding in some areas of the discipline; demonstrate cognitive and technical skills to analyse and evaluate approaches to land-use and built-environment problems in a range of changing social, economic and environmental contexts; demonstrate knowledge and skills to identify, synthesise and act on the diverse sources of information used by professional planners in the governance of different urban and regional contexts; and demonstrate initiative and judgement in addressing particular planning problems, capacity to work independently and collaboratively, and ability to communicate specialised information via written, oral and graphical forms.

Graduate Attributes

Knowledge of a Discipline Graduates will possess coherent knowledge about land use planning and its place in contemporary society locally and internationally. Graduates will understand how planning influences society and space in a variety of urban and regional contexts. This knowledge will be delivered through various teaching platforms, in the classroom and online, via a variety of materials ranging from critical readings to maps, plans and statistics. The development of knowledge in the discipline will be monitored through assignments within each unit of the course. Communication Skills Graduates will possess skills to communicate in forms essential to the discipline. This will include the ability to communicate through oral communication, report writing, statistics, maps, plans and other graphical forms. It will also include skills to constructively engage with various participants in urban and regional planning. These skills will be taught and practised in lectures, tutorials and online activities and assessment tasks throughout the course. Problem Solving Graduates will possess skills to identify problems and develop solutions in urban and regional planning. This will include capacity to interpret urban and regional environments, their composition and social impacts, and to contribute to the improvement of those environments through professional decision-making techniques. The course will provide the graduate with broad skills in general methods of urban and regional planning. Information Literacy Graduates will have the ability to identify information requirements in a variety of planning situations, and skills in sourcing, using and representing that information for planning practice. This will include assembling information from primary and secondary sources, and evaluating the significance of that information for a given context. These skills will be taught throughout the course, and exercised through a variety of guided assignment tasks. Ethical Conduct and Social Responsibility Graduates will have awareness of the professional and ethical responsibilities of the planning profession in urban and regional contexts. Graduates will have skills to engage appropriately with various participants in the planning discipline, and to be appropriately responsive to various social and cultural influences in planning interactions. Lifelong Learning Skills and knowledge developed during the course will foster intellectual curiousity, creativity, and critical thinking in the graduate. Cognition of planning concepts and practices developed through the course will provide a foundation for lifelong intellectual engagement with the discipline. Independence and Collaboration The various learning activities undertaken during the course will provide the graduate skills to work independently and collaboratively in planning situations. Graduates will have a confidence in their grasp of planning knowledge, and skills to inclusively negotiate planning outcomes with a variety of stakeholders. These skills will be developed through on-campus and online interactive activities, ranging from self-directed learning to collaborative projects.