Education

Education is one of the most powerful cultural currents of change and growth in the modern world. If you’re interested in the psychology, politics or social and cultural contexts of education and learning, you can study it on our Education course.

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Overview

Education at Cambridge

The course at Cambridge is a rigorous and rewarding interdisciplinary degree. You follow one of three tracks, combining in-depth study of a particular field of interest with an examination of wider educational and social issues.

The Education, Psychology and Learning track focuses on education from a psychological perspective; exploring human development and education in a variety of social and cultural environments.
In Education, Policy and International Development you consider historical and contemporary discussions concerning these areas, and education’s role in economic and social change.
Education, English, Drama and the Arts combines the study of drama and/or English literature with key issues in education, such as debates around creativity, learning and culture.

Facilities and resources

The Faculty of Education has excellent resources and state-of-the-art research facilities, including a psychology observation laboratory and a library that houses one of the UK’s best education collections. Active research forms the foundation of our teaching. You’re taught by academics who are at the forefront of their fields and who specialise in cutting-edge educational research.

Further study and professional qualifications

Our course provides excellent preparation for a wide range of Masters and doctoral research programmes, both at Cambridge – each track has close links to related MPhil programmes within the Faculty – and elsewhere.

Alternatively, for those intending to teach, the course provides a foundation from which to proceed to some initial teacher training courses (eg a PGCE).

Additional course costs

Year 1

Strongly recommended: Books (available in libraries) - Estimated cost £50
Optional – Education, English, Drama and the Arts: contribution to theatre trips - Estimated cost c£5-10 per trip

Year 3

Optional: Dissertation travel/DBS costs (depending on topic)

Changing course

Part II of Education is also available to undergraduates who have successfully completed Part I of another course, in which case it's normally taken as a two-year course.

To be able to change course, you need the agreement of your College that any change is in your educational interests, and you must have the necessary background in the subject to which you wish to change – in some cases you may be required to undertake some catch-up work or take up the new course from the start/an earlier year. If you think you may wish to change course, we encourage you to contact a College admissions office for advice. You should also consider if/how changing course may affect any financial support arrangements.

After Cambridge

The career options for an Education graduate are extremely varied and they find employment in a wide range of occupations and fields in the UK and abroad. Many have gone into academic research, educational psychology and neuroscience, publishing, teaching and the Civil Service, along with those now working in government policy and administration, journalism and the wider media, theatre, community arts, heritage and museum education, management and HR, business and consultancy, charities and NGOs, and international development. Many graduates also pursue careers associated with their combination subject.

Course Outline

In your Supplementary Application Questionnaire (SAQ) you should indicate which track you’re interested in studying.

You attend four to six lectures and seminars, and one or two hours of supervision per week in the first year.

You’re assessed at the end of each year. Depending on the papers studied, this will be through coursework, written examination, or a combination of both. In the third year, all students also submit a dissertation.

Year 1 (Part IA)

You take four papers, including two compulsory Education papers:

Critical Debates in Education – introducing major themes in education and Faculty research
Language, Communication and Literacies – exploring the social, psychological and material context within which spoken language and literacy are developed

Your two remaining papers are determined by the track you’re following:

Education, Psychology and Learning – Learning and Human Development, and Introduction to Psychology
Education, Policy and International Development – Education, Global Inequalities and Social Justice; and a paper from choices in the Human, Social and Political Sciences (HSPS) and Geography courses
Education, English, Drama and the Arts – Poetics, Aesthetics and Criticism; and either Drama Production or Literature and Culture

Year 2 (Part IB)

In Year 2, you take five papers. Two are compulsory – Designing Educational Research (a project in research design), and The Emergence of Educational Thinking and Systems (covering historical and philosophical perspectives on key aspects of education) – and you choose your third from several other education topics.

Your other two papers are track dependent:

Education, Psychology and Learning – Formal and Informal Contexts of Learning, and a psychology paper
Education, Policy and International Development – International Issues in Inclusion and Diversity in Education, and a paper from the HSPS course
Education, English, Drama and the Arts – two of International Literatures, Arts and Cultures; Theatre Practice and Production; one paper from a range offered in the English course

Year 3 (Part II)

You take five papers in the final year. All students take at least two papers on particular issues in education and write a dissertation of 8,000-10,000 words. For the fourth, you can take another issue in education paper, submit a second dissertation, or choose a paper from options in other relevant courses.

Your final paper is track specific:

Education, Psychology and Learning – Education, Neuroscience and Society
Education, Policy and International Development – Critical Debates in Education, Policy and International Development
Education, English, Drama and the Arts – either Children’s Literature, or Performance, Education and Society

For further information about studying Education at the University of Cambridge see the Faculty of Education website.

Entry Requirements

Typical offers require

A Level: A*AA
IB: 40-42 points, with 776 at Higher Level

For other qualifications, see our main Entrance requirements pages.

Course requirements

Required by all Colleges: no specific subjects
Required by some Colleges: A Level/IB Higher Level in a subject relevant to the track you want to study

All undergraduate admissions decisions are the responsibility of the Cambridge Colleges so check College websites for College-specific requirements. See also Entrance requirements and The Subject Matters for additional advice about general requirements for entry, qualifications and offers.

Admissions assessment

All applicants for Education are required to take a written assessment at interview, if interviewed.

Assessment format

Critical response to text or other stimulus (60 minutes)

Education Admissions Assessment Specification
Education Admissions Assessment 2016

You do not need to register or be registered in advance for the assessment at interview – the Colleges provide details of arrangements in the letters inviting applicants to interview.

Please note that your performance in the assessment at interview will not be considered in isolation, but will be taken into account alongside the other elements of your application.

Submitted work

Applicants to the following Colleges are required to submit one or two School/college essays as examples of written work prior to interview. See individual College websites for further details.

Christ's
Churchill
Downing
Fitzwilliam
Gonville and Caius
Homerton
Lucy Cavendish
Queens'
St Edmund's
Selwyn
Wolfson

For further information about studying Education at the University of Cambridge see the The Faculty of Education website.

Resources

Find out more about Education at Cambridge

The Faculty of Education - Explore Education in more detail on the faculty website.

Education, Psychology and Learning track - Education, Psychology and Learning track content, structure and further information

Education, Policy and International Development track - Education, Policy and International Development track content, structure and further information

Education, English, Drama and the Arts track - Education, English, Drama and the Arts track content, structure and further information

Application details - Information on the entry requirements and application procedure from the Faculty of Education.

Frequently Asked Questions - Education course FAQ

Why Us? - Information on student life, facilities and support available from the Faculty of Education

KIS

Unistats Information

Contextual Information

From September 2012, every undergraduate course of more than one year's duration will have a Key Information Set (KIS). The KIS allows you to compare 17 pieces of information about individual courses at different higher education institutions.

However, please note that superficially similar courses often have very different structures and objectives, and that the teaching, support and learning environment that best suits you can only be determined by identifying your own interests, needs, expectations and goals, and comparing them with detailed institution- and course-specific information.

We recommend that you look thoroughly at the course and University information contained on these webpages and consider coming to visit us on an Open Day, rather than relying solely on statistical comparison.

You may find the following notes helpful when considering information presented by the KIS.

The KIS relies on superficially similar courses being coded in the same way. Whilst this works on one level, it leads to some anomalies. For example, Music courses and Music Technology courses can have exactly the same code despite being very different programmes with quite distinct educational and career outcomes.

Any course which combines several disciplines (as many courses at Cambridge do) tends to be compared nationally with courses in just one of those disciplines, and in such cases a KIS comparison may not be an accurate or fair reflection of the reality of either. For example, you may find that when considering a degree which embraces a range of disciplines such as biology, physics, chemistry and geology (for instance, Natural Sciences at Cambridge), the comparison provided is with courses at other institutions that primarily focus on just one (or a smaller combination) of those subjects.

Whilst the KIS makes reference to some broad types of financial support offered by institutions, it cannot compare packages offered by different institutions. Different students have different circumstances and requirements, and you should weigh up what matters to you most: level of fee; fee waivers; means-tested support such as bursaries; non-means-tested support such as academic scholarships and study grants; and living costs such as accommodation, travel.

The KIS provides a typical cost of private (ie non-university) accommodation. This is very difficult to estimate as prices and properties vary. University accommodation can be substantially cheaper, and if you are likely to live in College for much or all of the duration of your course (as is the case at Cambridge), then the cost of private accommodation will be of less or no relevance for you. The KIS also provides the typical annual cost of university accommodation and the number of beds available. Note that since most universities offer a range of residential accommodation, you should check with institutions about the likelihood of securing a room at a price that suits your budget. Knowing the number of beds available is not necessarily useful: it may be much more important to find out if all students are guaranteed accommodation.

Time in lectures, seminars and similar can vary enormously by institution depending on the structure of the course, and the quality of such contact time should be the primary consideration.

Whilst starting salaries can be a useful measure, they do not give any sense of career trajectory or take account of the voluntary/low paid work that many graduates undertake initially in order to gain valuable experience necessary/advantageous for later career progression.

The above list is not exhaustive and there may be other important factors that are relevant to the choices that you are making, but we hope that this will be a useful starting point to help you delve deeper than the face value of the KIS data.

Undergraduate Study