Accounting
‘It’s all about the money!’ 
- Accounting gives students the tools to make real life financial decisions in a constantly changing and uncertain world.
- Accounting is the process of preparing and communicating financial information to a wide range of users.
- Accounting enhances financial literacy.
- Accounting helps individuals and organizations to be accountable to stakeholders for their actions.
Why study accounting?
‘The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.’
Henry David Thoreau
- Accounting enables students to develop the knowledge and skills to manage the financial affairs of individuals, communities and businesses.
- Students will develop the knowledge and skills necessary to:
- Prepare and maintain financial records
- These could include the management of credit, understanding the concept of compound interest, establishing and monitoring Kiwisaver, maintaining a household or small business budget and a basic understanding of the New Zealand tax system.
- Manage financial affairs
- An example would be communicating with a bank manger when applying for an overdraft facility. Effective financial management requires systematic planning to ensure deadlines are adhered to. Examples include claiming a tax rebate, meeting tax deadlines, payment of routine expenses and loan repayments.
- Act with integrity
- Integrity involves being honest, responsible and accountable. It requires individuals to act ethically at all times. Students will learn to justify and take responsibility for actions and decisions, obey the law and keep accurate and confidential records. Examples include accurately claiming for contract hours worked and using business credit cards responsibly.
- Contribute to the wider community
- This involves sharing their accounting knowledge and using their skills to contribute to their families, whānau and communities. For example, becoming the treasurer of a local club or managing the family budget.
Economics
Why study economics?
If you study economics you will think differently to others. Economics students explore decisions that directly affect their lives, such as:
Whether to do homework or go to a movie- Extract mineral resources today or save them for the future
- Charge the full price or subsidise education to make it more accessible.
By studying economics, students will consider how New Zealanders are affected by the economic decision-making of individuals, communities, businesses, and government agencies in New Zealand and overseas.
They will:
- Develop an understanding of the New Zealand economy and the policies that the Government uses to manage it
- Make sense of economic problems that they may be facing, now and in the future
- Make connections between New Zealand’s economy and the global economy.
- Students will understand why New Zealand consumers may experience price increases for products, such as cheese and butter, if local producers are exporting goods such as dairy produce for increasing returns.
- Students will be challenged to find solutions to current macro-economic issues, such as unemployment, poverty, low economic growth, inflation, overuse of natural resources.
- Recognises the different perspectives and values individuals and groups bring to economic decision making
- Students will compare and contrast economic decisions affecting New Zealand in contexts in which resources are scarce.
- Students will research the viewpoints different groups bring to negotiations. For example, an employer and an employee may have different views on what a fair wage increase might be.
- Students will use analytical tools to present justified recommendations about resource issues. For example, a student could use efficiency and/or equity arguments to justify a policy like a carbon tax as a means of reducing global warming, or giving property rights to Māori as a means of conserving the foreshore.
By studying economics, students will learn to value all cultures and the contributions they make to economies. For example, a student might study the impact of immigration on the economy and what skills different immigrants bring to New Zealand.
Prepares students to participate effectively in the real world
Students will become financially capable. They will be able to:
- Complete tax returns
- Make reasoned decisions about use of credit (for example, whether to use fixed or floating interest rates)
- Develop spreadsheets and interpret business and economic statistics
- Use economic models (both macro and micro) to enable critical thinking about the real world and so be able to explain the real world or make predictions about it.
Such critical thinking skills are highly valued in global job markets. By studying economics, students will be able to use knowledge and technologies that will enable them to actively contribute in individual, business, government, and global financial contexts. They will see how their incomes will grow if they develop skills that employers demand.
