This chapter will tell you how to create a postgraduate master's course.

It covers everything you need to know before you start adding these courses to CMS, including:

• eligibility
• academic year and course duration
• term dates and holidays
• available course years

It also explains how to handle specific courses:

• English postgraduate healthcare courses
• Scottish postgraduate courses 
• architecture courses

The regulations for course eligibility differ between domiciles. You may need to set up separate courses for English and Welsh students depending on course duration and study mode.

Postgraduate Master’s Loans for English and Welsh students are only available for full 180 credit postgraduate master’s courses. These can be either taught or research-based and in any subject area.

The course must lead to a master’s qualification. The most common are:

• MSc (Master of Science)
• MA (Master of Arts)
• MPhil (Master of Philosophy)
• MRes (Master of Research)
• LLM (Master of Law)
• MLitt (Master of Letters)
• MFA (Master of Fine Arts)
• MEd (Master of Education)
• MBA (Master of Business Administration)

There are many different types of master’s degree, but they all must meet the outcomes the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) has set out.

These are set out in 'The framework for higher education qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (FHEQ), 2018' and 'The framework for qualifications of higher education institutions in Scotland 2001'.

When you set up a postgraduate master’s course, the Qualification dropdown will give you the following options:

• taught master’s
• research master’s
• Master of Architecture (postgraduate Student Finance England and Student Finance Wales courses)
• Postgraduate Certificate (postgraduate Northern Irish courses only)
• Postgraduate Diploma (postgraduate Scottish and Northern Irish courses)

The following course types are ineligible for a Postgraduate Master’s Loan:

• undergraduate-funded courses
• postgraduate initial teacher training (ITT) courses
• Scottish Master of Arts (MA)
• Master of Architecture (where parts 1 and 2 are completed as a single course)
• English postgraduate healthcare courses
• integrated master’s courses which will continue to receive undergraduate funding
• doctoral courses (PhDs)
• other postgraduate-level courses (such as PGCert and PGDip) for English and Welsh students 

The regulations define the academic year as a 12-month period beginning on either 1 September, 1 January, 1 April or 1 July. The date depends on when the course started.

We will not make payments to students beyond the end of the academic year. If a student's course starts on 12 October 2020 and ends on 8 October 2021, we'll pay any funding in the academic year the course starts in. For this example, we'll complete payments by 31 August.

The course duration options you can use depend on the course type and domicile.

The following sections will cover the course duration options for: 

• full-time courses
• part-time English courses
• part-time Welsh courses

If you offer postgraduate master’s courses, you must enter 3 sets of term dates for all course years. This is so students receive their funding payments throughout the period of their study.

The term dates you enter determine the students' payment dates. If you do not have terms, we still need 3 terms in our system. This is because we pay students at 3 points throughout the academic year. You should create term dates that reflect the study pattern of your students. For example, you could use any holiday periods as a natural term break.

You should include exam periods in your term dates. However, do not include periods when students are waiting for their results or resitting exams.

If the final course year is shorter than the rest of the course years, your term dates  should reflect that. For example, if the course duration is 15 months, the second year would be 3 months long. The last year of study still needs 3 terms regardless of the length. In this example, the 3 term dates for year 2 could be each of the 3 remaining months.

You can find further examples in the Term date scenarios section under this chapter.

If you enter a term start or end date that's on a weekend, the system will ask you to confirm this is correct before it lets you save the course.

You can apply Available course years to all full-time and part-time postgraduate courses for English, Welsh and Northern Irish students. It cannot be applied to postgraduate courses for Scottish students. The 2 settings are:

• all students
• no students

When a course is no longer needed for new students, you should set your courses to No students instead of closing them. This makes sure continuing students still receive their funding. You can transfer students on or off the courses if you need to.

There are different funding packages available for Postgraduate Healthcare courses depending on each student's domicile. This means different versions of these courses are required if you wish to offer them to students of all domiciles.

Below is a guide to setting up this type of course so each of your students can access the correct funding they are entitled to.

English Domiciled Students

From academic year 2018/19 the Department of Health does not fund tuition fees through Health Education England or bursaries through NHS BSA to new students on postgraduate healthcare courses in England.

Instead, English-domiciled students new to a postgraduate healthcare course from academic year 2018/19 will be eligible for the standard undergraduate package of support.

To be eligible for this, postgraduate healthcare courses must meet the following criteria:

• a designated pre-registration course in allied health profession subjects, nursing or midwifery (see list of courses below)
• a level 7 postgraduate master’s or postgraduate diploma
• full-time
• not distance learning
• at least 2 academic years

Eligible courses are those leading to professional registration in:

• chiropody
• dental hygiene
• dental therapy
• dietetics and nutrition
• nursing – diplomas and degrees (including courses to convert from second to first level registration)
• midwifery – diplomas and degrees
• occupational therapy
• operating department practice – diplomas and degrees
• orthoptics
• physiotherapy
• podiatry
• prosthetics and orthotics
• radiography
• radiotherapy
• speech and language therapy

From academic year 2018/19 you should enter an undergraduate course for English students. This will allow them to access the undergraduate package.

Set the qualification on the undergraduate courses to Postgraduate Healthcare. Once you select this qualification, you can only check the English domicile in the Designation section. This ensures that only English-domiciled students can select these courses. They will not be available to Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish students.

You should fill all other fields as normal for these undergraduate courses.

If your postgraduate healthcare course does not meet the eligibility criteria noted, you should enter it as a postgraduate master's course.

Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh Domiciled Students

For Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish-domiciled students, you should enter a postgraduate course. Do this as you normally would and select the relevant qualifications. This will give the students access to the appropriate postgraduate loan.

English students

The 2 parts of an architecture course may be treated as a single course for student support purposes. They may thus receive undergraduate funding.

This is unaffected if a student undertakes a year’s practical experience between the 2 parts. The 2 parts can still be treated as a single course even if a student takes a break of more than 1 year between them, as long as it is clear that the student did not withdraw from the overall course at the end of part 1.

For example, a student completes part 1 and a year of practical experience, then decides to take a year out before starting part 2. They can still be treated as attending the same single course if the facts of their case do not show they withdrew from the course at the end of part 1.

The regulations mean that students do not need to declare their intention to attend both parts before starting or completing part 1.

For the course to be treated as a single course the student must:

• not withdraw between parts 1 and 2
• not change mode of study
• not have an excessive gap between completing the 2 parts

If a student applies for support for part 2 of the architecture course without a part 1 course, we cannot treat it as part of a single course. In this case, the student will not qualify for undergraduate support. They could apply for postgraduate master's support if the course meets the designation criteria.

The single course provision only applies to full-time courses. Students who have switched mode of study or are studying both courses part-time will not qualify for undergraduate support for part 2. They could be eligible for postgraduate master's support if the course meets the designation criteria.

Welsh students

The same rules apply to Welsh students as English students with the following exceptions.

From academic year 2018/19 the Welsh Government changed the single course provision to include full-time and part-time courses. Students taking both courses, full-time or part-time, can qualify for undergraduate support for part 2 of the course.

In this scenario for academic year 2018/19, the student will need to be a 2018 cohort student for both part 1 and part 2.

Undergraduate courses

There are 2 parts of an architecture course that are treated as one single course for student support purposes.

You should add these to CMS as undergraduate courses. For more information, please see the chapters about creating a full-time undergraduate course and creating a part-time undergraduate course.

Postgraduate courses

Students applying for Part 2 courses should apply for postgraduate funding when:

• the gap between the part 1 and part 2 course is longer than 3 years
• they've withdrawn from their study before beginning the part 2 course
• they're studying the part 2 course on a part-time basis (England only)
• they've changed mode of study
• the course does not lead to qualification as an architect

You should add these courses to CMS as postgraduate courses, choosing the Master of Architecture qualification. We will assess the student’s application and decide if this is the correct funding level for them.

From academic year 2020/21 you can add postgraduate courses for Scottish students as postgraduate rather than undergraduate courses.

You can do this in the same way you would add your other postgraduate courses.

1. Select Add a Course.
   
   
2. Choose the correct Study mode. Only Scottish providers can select part-time.
   
   
3. Select Postgraduate funding level.
   
   
4. Select Scotland from the domicile options.
   
   
   
   
5. Select Continue. You can then enter the remaining course details.

The Qualifications dropdown menu will have 3 options:

• Postgraduate Diploma
• Research Master’s
• Taught Master’s

Once you select the qualification, the relevant duration options will become available: 

• postgraduate diploma: 1 year full-time and 2 or 3 years part-time
• master’s (research and taught): 1 or 2 years full-time and 2, 3 or 4 years part-time

For the course fee, you should enter the full amount. If your course is more than one year in duration, split your fees equally across all years of the course.

You should complete all other fields as normal.