Introduction

The National Institute of Education Doctor in Education (NIE EdD) programme is based within Singapore’s national education institute with a strong reputation in teacher education and educational research. With the mission of nurturing leaders for change in the education professions, the NIE EdD received its first intake of students in 2012. The programme took its inspiration from the Doctor in Education (Dual Award) programme with the Institute of Education, University College London, which began in 2007. The impetus for the inception of the NIE EdD was motivated by the desire to create a professional doctorate in education for leaders in education that is uniquely NIE. Since its inception, the Office for Graduate Studies and Professional Learning at NIE has continually taken steps to review and renew the programme. Several revisions on the programme have been carried out to ensure that graduates of the EdD receive equally rigorous scholarly preparation as graduates of the PhD.

The current programme structure with a total of nine specialisations is a significant step forward in expanding the impact of the NIE EdD as a doctorate for professionals in education and education-related fields. The programme affords deeper learning in six courses (each of 4 Academic Units) with the total coursework requirement remaining at 24 Academic Units. Working with a Research Supervisor, students continue to complete a dissertation of 60,000 words and conduct rigorous and in-depth research to make significant contribution to the scholarship and advancement of educational practice. The revision of the fee structure in 2018 from semester-based to course-based will afford greater flexibility to students in terms of pace and scope of learning without compromising depth of learning, thus maintaining the high quality of doctoral work by our students.

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Curriculum Overview

Programme Structure

The Doctor in Education (EdD) programme is designed for professionals in education and education-related fields. It is targeted at professionals who have a commitment to improvements at their workplace, and in extending and honing their professional expertise in their respective fields of education in both research and practice domains. It acknowledges expertise that candidates have attained in their field by respecting and building on the wealth of their professional knowledge, while at the same time inviting them to examine and investigate their professional knowledge in a reflective, collaborative, critical and research-based way so as to make meaningful significant impact on professional practice, and on their own professionalism and professional identities. The programme also prepares candidates for leadership in managerial and administrative positions who can use and extend existing knowledge to solve educational problems. It is of value to academic staff in universities and colleges, school leaders and teacher leaders in both private and public organizations, and professionals engaging in education and education-related work in private and public settings. It has the rigour and expectations of a PhD, but with a professional focus. The EdD programme seeks to engender professional leaders who can demonstrate that they have critically reflect and examine the professional knowledge in their respective fields of education, yet make significant contribution to the scholarship of educational professional practice. It also seek to empower professional leaders to demonstrate advancement in the investigation of educational professional practice through the conduct of systematic and rigorous inquiry into a field-based issue or problem, and in so doing, provide a good response to current and emerging complex real world problems.
The NIE's EdD programme, benchmarked against educational doctorates from international universities with highly reputable graduate schools of education, has the following key design and delivery characteristics:

• A view of learning as located within communities of knowledge and practice, through the deliberate building of a cohort community among students,
• A teaching programme with a clear purpose and coherence, staged in such a way that it takes students' rich and diverse professional knowledge and expertise as a starting point for their academic investigations into professional practice, and scaffolds, through carefully staged and incrementally organized coursework and assignments, their capabilities to critically examine and to research dimensions of this practice,
• A course-intensive programme (in which the coursework component makes up a substantial portion of the degree) that prepares students for, and eases the passage into dissertation research,
• Rather than a one-size-fits-all curriculum, the provision of flexibility, choice and focus through a programme that offers both core courses as well as nine specialisations,
• Coursework component can be completed within 1 yrs (full-time) and 1.5 yrs (part-time), and that the necessary content and research capacities for the dissertation component have already been built-up by the time the final course is complete, and
• A dissertation that demonstrates students' mastery of the skills of rigorous and in-depth research into their professional context and a specific aspect of their practice, and provides original insight and improvement in practice.

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Entry Requirements

You will be interviewed by the Academic Group that offers your selected specialisation courses, and may be required to have gained educational and work experience as a prerequisite to these courses.

For international applicants, more information on the entry requirements can be found here.  : https://www.nie.edu.sg/higher-degrees/admissions/general-entry-requirement 

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Duration & Intake

Programme Duration

The Doctor in Education is offered on both part-time and full-time basis. The candidature periods are as follows:

 

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Fees & Funding

Our tuition fees are subject to revision on a yearly basis. More details can be found here. : https://www.nie.edu.sg/higher-degrees/admissions/fees