Graduate Study
The Faculty of Education is recognised as providing one of the highest quality graduate programmes in the UK and is home to a thriving community of students following courses of advanced study and research at Master's and Doctoral levels.
Our postgraduate courses, which combine theory, research and practice, are aimed at anyone who wishes to follow a professional interest in education. In particular, but not exclusively, we aim to attract those who aspire to careers in some form of educational leadership, educational research or teacher education.
Graduate work in Cambridge is intense and intellectually demanding. Therefore we have high academic expectations of all our students. Importantly, much of the work our students undertake is aimed directly at improving educational practice, often in students' own institutions, and so we also welcome applications from newly qualified teachers.
Opportunities for research
The Faculty of Education in Cambridge is one of the UK's key centres for educational research, carrying out an extensive range of externally funded research projects. Our graduate students, from all over the world (currently over 40 different countries), make an important contribution not only to the vitality of the Faculty's research culture but also to its outstanding reputation internationally. The Faculty has long established relationships with both national and international agencies and institutions, while most supervisors of graduate students have contacts with regional schools and other institutional settings.
The Faculty's doctoral research training programme is accredited by the ESRC and we have several fully funded ESRC PhD studentships and a Faculty funded studentship for Home/EU students for award each year. There are many other funding opportunities available to overseas students wishing to pursue a doctorate at Cambridge and further details can be found on the Board of Graduate Studies funding pages.
Supervision
One of the great strengths of studying at Cambridge is the level of individual support you will receive from an expert in your field. The Faculty assigns all graduates a personal supervisor to guide them through their course. You will meet with them regularly to discuss progress and submit written work for scrutiny and comment at appropriate times. The Faculty has around forty academic staff teaching on the Graduate programme offering a very wide range of expertise. A PhD student is also allocated an advisor who will offer additional, but less regular, support and with whom you can discuss your progress.
Your supervisor, who will report on your progress termly, will help you to clarify your ideas, keep you on target and help you to meet and understand the standard of work required. He or she will direct you to information and resources, and should help you to produce research at a very high level. However, he or she will not write your assignments or do your literature searches for you, but simply help you to take advantage of all the excellent opportunities available.