Graduating around the globe
MARGUS PEDASTE & ÄLI LEIJEN
Estonia
In Estonia, doctoral studies in Educational Science often start almost a year before the formal start of the studies. Usually, the potential student candidate gets in contact with a potential supervisor, or the latter seeks a student who could be involved in a research project. Often, the PhD studies are carried out in the context of larger projects, and the project team supports the PhD student in one way or another in becoming a researcher and joining the research community. The first step towards starting with PhD studies is for the potential supervisor to write up a
PhD project. Sometimes, the potential PhD student candidate already collaborates in this phase. Often, there will be more than one supervisor for a project, to provide the students with different types of guidance needed in their studies. The co-supervisors might be experts from abroad. The supervisors’ projects are examined by the doctoral programme council; based on evaluations made by two reviewers, it is decided which projects will be presented to potential candidates. The candidate will choose one of them and prepare their admission application
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