Duration
2 years full time / 4 years part time
Mode (Location)
On campus (Parkville)
Intake
March, July
Key dates
Key dates
Fees
Commonwealth Supported Places (CSPs) available
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Learn more
Entry pathways
Special entry options and Access Melbourne are available
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Learn more
Course structure
Overview
Over the course of the degree, you will develop a strong foundation in education theory while being given the tools to apply these learnings in a practical way. This focus on real-world application will assist with progression in your role or promotion to positions of leadership and management in the education field.
Taught by internationally recognised researchers and education leaders, you'll gain the knowledge and skills to:
- Address educational challenges using theoretical understandings, evidence-based research and analysis, evaluation and communication skills
- Understand First Nations knowledges and their contribution to education
- Understand current educational theories, debates, policies and practices
- Apply educational policies and practices in your teaching to promote respect for diversity, inclusion and social justice
- Understand global education perspectives and issues and how education can help address sustainability challenges
- Understand educational research principles and methods
- Explore system-level issues and challenges both in and out of the classroom.
Study Structure
The flexible structure of the Master of Education, with a range of electives and specialisations, will allow you to qualify in your particular area of interest. Entry points to the course are in both semester 1 and 2, designed to suit most schedules.
Depending on your academic background and professional experience, you may be eligible for either 50 or 100 points of advanced standing when you enrol into the Master of Education 2025 intake. For flexibility around professional or family commitments, we also offer the Master of Education on a part-time or full-time basis.
Available from 2025 onwards, in your final semester, you can choose to complete a capstone subject, a research-based inquiry project that speaks directly to your interests and priorities in your own professional practice or specialisation. This includes the option of a capstone with an international travel component.
Refer to the table below for 2024 and 2025 study structures:
2024 study structure | 2025 onwards study structure |
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Standard program:
| Standard program:
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Research option:
| Research option:
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Fast-track program:
| Fast-track program:
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Specialisation options
Create the course your career needs with our Master of Education specialisation areas. Our ten specialisation options give you the ability to build a flexible course around your own interests, helping further your teaching practice or your work in the education sector. Whether you want to deeply explore one specialisation, or study elective subjects across multiple areas, you’ll be in control of building a bespoke course that will give you the knowledge to accelerate your career in education.
Please note: The faculty reserves the right to review specialisations available for delivery on offer in any given intake.
Assessment, Data and Evaluation
This specialisation enables you to harness the power of data to improve learning and education. Become a more discerning user of assessment and other sources of evidence in a wide range of educational contexts and settings.
Creativity and the Arts
This specialisation enables you to gain the knowledge, skills and experience to be a leader in the Arts and creative practice in and across education. You will cultivate critical thinking as well as analytical and creative problem-solving capabilities. You will learn in supportive studio environments where you will practice with your peers and leading experts in Creativity and Arts Education. You will develop your expertise in a range of contexts for arts-based educational research and apply established theories to a body of knowledge of practice. By engaging with issues, practices, policies, methods, and theories about learning in and through the arts in diverse settings, you will advance your professional practice.
Digital Futures and Innovative Practices
New specialisation option available from 2025 intake onwards.
This specialisation enables you to understand the theoretical, sociotechnical, pedagogical and ethical dimensions associated with the role of technology and innovation in education and across the lifespan. The specialisation is inspired by two intertwined strands of educational research: a strand interested in digital transformation that examines technology and its role in systemic educational change (the “big picture”); and a strand interested in innovative practice, that examines how technology in the built environment can be embedded in pedagogical design.
Education Policy and Governance
This specialisation critically engages with frameworks and approaches to education policy and governance. This includes paradigms and methods of understanding policy, processes and global mobilities of policy making, and complexities of policy enactment. Through discussion and exploring case studies of education governance across the lifespan, the specialisation will further understandings and enactment of policy that contributes to educational change.
Educational Leadership
This specialisation enables students to gain a deeper understanding of the processes, impact and importance of leadership in educational organisations.
Designed for educators working in a range of educational settings in government and non-government sectors, VET and tertiary sectors, and workplace training contexts, who are seeking to advance into leadership positions. Access practical knowledge, conceptual frameworks, and state-of-the-art research with a global perspective to help you grow into an effective and sought-after leader.
Equity, Sustainability and Social Change
Harness your passion to effect social change and foster equity and diversity in schools and other educational settings. Broaden and enhance your own practice by deepening your understanding of key concerns in contemporary policy and practice.
This specialisation allows students to harness a passion for social change and build the knowledge and expertise required to act decisively regarding questions of equity, justice, sustainability and diversity in educational contexts. This specialisation assumes that equity, justice, diversity, and environmental sustainability are closely intertwined. The specialisation empowers students to examine policies and practices across a range of educational settings and address social and educational inequalities, environmental challenges, injustice, and social diversity. In this specialisation, students examine the barriers as well as the opportunities for achieving more sustainable, equitable and inclusive educational participation and experiences. Students will explore specific and intersecting experiences of inequality, including those related to gender, sexuality, race and racism, colonialism, capitalism, and environmental crises. Through critical engagement with theory and research, students will develop strategies to inform their own career pathway in education, from policy, to schools, early childhood settings, further and higher education and public educational institutions.
Literacies and English
For those wanting to learn more about literacy or interested in influencing literacy development. Equip yourself to lead schools and students in all facets of literacy development, from early years to adulthood, and gain contemporary in-depth knowledge of literacy policy, theory and curriculum.
This specialisation develops students’ theoretical and practical knowledge of language, literacy and English pedagogies in order for them to position themselves as experts in educational discourses. The specialisation is structured around the traditional language modes of speaking and listening, reading and viewing, and writing and creating, but extends these to consider the implications for teaching English and literacy across the lifespan in global, pluricentric and digital contexts. Students will develop their research capabilities, including the analysis of data and evaluation of educational research. Through the exploration of contemporary challenges and opportunities inherent in English and literacy pedagogy, and engagement with emerging theoretical and practical approaches, the specialisation prepares students to propose contextualised evidence-informed solutions to educational challenges related to English and literacy education.
Mathematics and Science Education
Whether you are a teacher, education leader, policy maker, educator or someone who engages with mathematics or science at work, equip yourself with research-informed knowledge, practical skills, and insight to empower your professional practice. Develop the understanding, skills and confidence to lead science, mathematics and numeracy learning and learn innovative approaches to teaching and communicating these subjects in ways that lift engagement and performance.
The Science of Learning
New specialisation option available from 2025 intake onwards.
This specialisation takes an interdisciplinary, scientific approach to understanding learning. Particular focus will be on how understanding the psychological and neural mechanisms of learning can inform and improve pedagogical practice and learning outcomes. Specifically, students will deepen their knowledge about the cognitive, social-emotional, and developmental processes that underpin learning and consider the practical implications for instruction. In addition, students will gain a broad understanding of the scientific method and the application of that method to the design, delivery and evaluation of learning interventions.
Wellbeing in Education
Suited to educators in a range of settings, this specialisation enables students to develop the knowledge and skills needed to create nurturing, inclusive and wellbeing-focused learning (and working) environments related to individual, group/team, organisational and system levels. Students will critically appraise interdisciplinary contemporary theories, research findings, practices, interventions and policies that support enabling and inclusive learning environments. Students will also consolidate and expand their repertoire of interpersonal, group facilitation and leadership skills to support the development of flourishing individuals, communities and societies. In providing insights from traditions of critical and theoretical enquiry, students will engage with the ways in which structural conditions work to influence wellbeing and learning attainment, raising the big questions of equity, inclusion, and the relationship of education to society.
How will I study?
The Master of Education has been designed around the lives of working professionals. The delivery mode of our course is face-to-face classes on the Parkville campus, running evenings and weekends.
For more detailed information on course structure and subjects, refer to the handbook.