Snackable study: how to break up your master's degree

Not got the time, the inclination or the funds to do a full master’s degree? Then why not consider the shorter options? Postgraduate certificates (PGCerts) and postgraduate diplomas (PGDips) don’t require you to do a dissertation, but they also contain challenging, master’s-level content. They’re recognised qualifications in their own right but can also count as part of a full master’s degree.

The Open University (OU) offers PGCerts and PGDips as a nested set of qualifications under a master’s programme. “The certificate is a third of a full master’s, then the diploma is two-thirds, and if you wish to top it up to the full master’s you do the dissertation,” says Andy Lane, professor of environmental systems at the OU’s Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. “Whether we offer this depends on how the master’s programme has been defined and who the target audience is. We have 33 master’s programmes on offer, but only 21 of them have a nester PGDip and only 19 have a PGCert.”

Gail Miles, director of online studies at the University of Liverpool, says this style of education has grown in prominence in recent years: “It’s driven by an increasingly competitive employment market that demands continued professional development and upskilling. It can be difficult to commit to a full degree programme and there is a greater need for students to see a return on investment from their education faster than ever before, allowing them to climb the career ladder, demonstrate standout performance and increase their job security.”

These courses span the sectors – business, technology, science – but they’re particularly popular in health and social care, where staff are under increasing time pressures but need to be up to date with their knowledge. Here, flexibility is key.

“We find that people don’t want to sign up for a 60 or 120 block,” explains Claire Nadaf, associate professor in the School of Health and Social Care at London South Bank University (LSBU). “So for a PGCert, which is 60 credits over a year on a part-time basis, we allow our students to take modules as and when it suits them. They have jobs and families, after all. They can put those three modules together at the end for a PGCert, or they could go on and do 120 credits for a PGDip.”

Practice development nurse and registered midwife Taz Ebenezer is midway through her PGCert in practice education at LSBU, which will give her National Midwifery Council teacher status. “It’s great to be learning again,” she says. “Initially I found the amount of information I was expected to find out for myself difficult – I was very used to people giving me information and I would produce the work. But I’ve adapted now and I’m really enjoying it. It’s great to have these extra tools you might use in your teaching. So much is online now, which is brilliant. It’s lots of different routes to learning, rather than a teacher talking to you.”

She’s also enjoying keeping her options open. “It’s basically one year of a master’s and then it’s up to me if I want to do the other two years. But I still get my teaching registration, which is great. And I get six years to do the rest, if I want to.”

And as more and more employees across the sectors are pushed to do more with less, it’s likely that we’ll see further growth in these qualifications. Lane points out that more than 90% of OU postgraduate students are already in employment, and many are being funded by their employers. “Providing that flexibility in professional work-related education and training benefits both employer and employee,” he says.

Miles agrees: “We expect to see an increasing shift in the way that master’s education is delivered and consumed.

“We’re moving away from intensive reading and long theses, and towards practical education and the development of a mindset that is solution-oriented, and geared to problem solving.”