Postgraduate education
Postgraduate education, graduate education, or graduate school consists of academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications usually pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate degree.
The organization and structure of postgraduate education varies in different countries, as well as in different institutions within countries. The term "graduate school" or "grad school" is typically used in North America, while "postgraduate" is more common in the rest of the English-speaking world.
Graduate degrees can include master's and doctoral degrees, and other qualifications such as graduate diplomas, certificates and professional degrees. A distinction is typically made between graduate schools and professional schools, which can include medical school, law school, business school, and other institutions of specialized fields such as nursing, speech–language pathology, engineering, or architecture. The distinction between graduate schools and professional schools is not absolute since various professional schools offer graduate degrees and vice versa.
Producing original research is a significant component of graduate studies in the humanities, natural sciences and social sciences. This research typically leads to the writing and defense of a thesis or dissertation. In graduate programs that are oriented toward professional training, the degrees may consist solely of coursework, without an original research or thesis component. Graduate students in the humanities, sciences and social sciences often receive funding from their university or a teaching assistant position or other job; in the profession-oriented grad programs, students are less likely to get funding, and the fees are typically much higher.
Although graduate school programs are distinct from undergraduate degree programs, graduate instruction is often offered by some of the same senior academic staff and departments who teach undergraduate courses. Unlike in undergraduate programs, however, it is less common for graduate students to take coursework outside their specific field of study at the graduate or graduate entry level. At the doctorate programs, though, it is quite common for students to take courses from a wider range of study, for which some fixed portion of coursework, sometimes known as a residency, is typically required to be taken from outside the department and university of the degree-seeking candidate to broaden the research abilities of the student.
Types of postgraduate qualification
There are two main types of postgraduate degrees: academic and vocational.Degrees
The term degree in this context means the moving from one stage or level to another, and first appeared in the 13th century.History
Although systems of higher education date back to ancient India, ancient Greece, ancient Rome and ancient China, the concept of postgraduate education depends upon the system of awarding degrees at different levels of study, and can be traced to the workings of European medieval universities, mostly Italian. University studies took six years for a bachelor's degree and up to twelve additional years for a master's degree or doctorate. The first six years taught the faculty of the arts, which was the study of the seven liberal arts: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music theory, grammar, logic, and rhetoric. The main emphasis was on logic. Once a Bachelor of Arts degree had been obtained, the student could choose one of three faculties—law, medicine, or theology—in which to pursue master's or doctor's degrees.The degrees of master and doctor were for some time equivalent, "the former being more in favour at Paris and the universities modeled after it, and the latter at Bologna and its derivative universities. At Oxford and Cambridge a distinction came to be drawn between the Faculties of Law, Medicine, and Theology and the Faculty of Arts in this respect, the title of Doctor being used for the former, and that of Master for the latter." Because theology was thought to be the highest of the subjects, the doctorate came to be thought of as higher than the master's.
The main significance of the higher, postgraduate degrees was that they licensed the holder to teach.
Definition
In most countries, the hierarchy of postgraduate degrees is as follows:Master's degrees. These are sometimes placed in a further hierarchy, starting with degrees such as the Master of Arts and Master of Science degrees, then the Master of Philosophy degree, and finally the Master of Letters degree . In the UK, master's degrees may be taught or by research: taught master's degrees include the Master of Science and Master of Arts degrees which last one year and are worth 180 CATS credits, whereas the master's degrees by research include the Master of Research degree which also lasts one year and is worth 180 CATS or 90 ECTS credits and the Master of Philosophy degree which lasts two years. In Scottish Universities, the Master of Philosophy degree tends to be by research or higher master's degree and the Master of Letters degree tends to be the taught or lower master's degree. In many fields such as clinical social work, or library science in North America, a master's is the terminal degree. Professional degrees such as the Master of Architecture degree can last to three and a half years to satisfy professional requirements to be an architect. Professional degrees such as the Master of Business Administration degree can last up to two years to satisfy the requirement to become a knowledgeable business leader.
Doctorates. These are often further divided into academic and professional doctorates. An academic doctorate can be awarded as a Doctor of Philosophy degree, a Doctor of Psychology degree, or as a Doctor of Science degree. The Doctor of Science degree can also be awarded in specific fields, such as a Doctor of Science in Mathematics degree, a Doctor of Agricultural Science degree, a Doctor of Business Administration degree, etc. In some parts of Europe, doctorates are divided into the Doctor of Philosophy degree or "junior doctorate", and the "higher doctorates" such as the Doctor of Science degree, which is generally awarded to highly distinguished professors. A doctorate is the terminal degree in most fields. In the United States, there is little distinction between a Doctor of Philosophy degree and a Doctor of Science degree. In the UK, Doctor of Philosophy degrees are often equivalent to 540 CATS credits or 270 ECTS European credits, but this is not always the case, as the credit structure of doctoral degrees is not officially defined.
In some countries, such as Finland and Sweden, there is the degree of Licentiate, which is more advanced than a master's degree but less so than a doctorate. Credits required are about half of those required for a doctoral degree. Coursework requirements are the same as for a doctorate, but the extent of original research required is not as high as for doctorate. Medical doctors for example are typically licentiates instead of doctors.
In the UK and countries whose education systems were founded on the British model, such as the US, the master's degree was for a long time the only postgraduate degree normally awarded, while in most European countries apart from the UK, the master's degree almost disappeared. In the second half of the 19th century, however, US universities began to follow the European model by awarding doctorates, and this practice spread to the UK. Conversely, most European universities now offer master's degrees parallelling or replacing their regular system, so as to offer their students better chances to compete in an international market dominated by the American model.
In the UK, an equivalent formation to doctorate is the NVQ 5 or QCF 8.