Courtesy : The Postgraduate Diploma in Commerce (PGDCom)

Postgraduate education (graduate education in North America) involves learning and studying for academic or professional degrees, academic or professional certificates, academic or professional diplomas, or other qualifications for which a first or bachelor’s degree generally is required, and it is normally considered to be part of higher education. In North America, this level is typically referred to as graduate school (and often colloquially as grad school).

The organization and structure of postgraduate education varies in different countries, as well as in different institutions within countries. This article outlines the basic types of courses and of teaching and examination methods, with some explanation of their history # ISO certification in India

Types of postgraduate qualification

There are two main types of degrees studied for at the postgraduate level: academic and vocational degrees.

Degrees

The term degree in this context means the moving from one stage or level to another (from French degré, from Latin dē- + gradus), and first appeared in the 13th century.# ISO certification in India

History

The enrollment of some students in the University of Bologn

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.# ISO certification in India

The degrees of master (from Latin magister) and doctor (from Latin 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^[6] (“doctor” comes from Latin docere, “to teach”).# ISO certification in India

Non-degree qualifications

Postgraduate education can involve studying for qualifications such as postgraduate certificates and postgraduate diplomas. They are sometimes used as steps on the route to a degree, as part of the training for a specific career, or as a qualification in an area of study too narrow to warrant a full degree cour.# ISO certification in India