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My Master's title devaluated to a Bachelor

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  1. #1

    My Master's title devaluated to a Bachelor

    Hi everyone,

    I was wondering if any of you had a similar experience. I am a Dutch-born Chinese who has obtained a Master's of Arts in Social Sciences at the VU University of Amsterdam in 2004 before relocating to HK.

    Here, I've had my degrees assessed recently by the HK Council for Accreditation of Academic & Vocational Qualifications, as I needed it for further educational purposes. The result of the assessment was that my educational qualification meets the standards here of a local Bachelor Degree. Ough, so my Master's degree has been reduced to a Bachelor with this result (and I needed to pay for this assessment as well). Of course I delved deeper into this and asked them how they came to this conclusion. They responded that the local Bachelor degrees and other Bachelor degrees in English- speaking countries take 4 years of study?! (Normally a Bachelor in Holland takes 3 years). But from hearsay I've heard that this is something from the recent past and that a Bachelor's degree here was three years as well a few years back. Has anyone had a similar experience? Has it got anything to do with that they don't know the Dutch standards of education well enough, or that they prefer degrees obtained at an English-speaking country? Are Bachelor's degrees from English-speaking countries usually 4 years? And what shall I do? Is the only thing that I can do just to accept the verdict?


  2. #2

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    There is a department you can contact in Holland I thought it is Informatie Beheer Groep where you can have an official declaration from the Dutch government what level your degree is.


  3. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by howareyoutoday:
    Are Bachelor's degrees from English-speaking countries usually 4 years? And what shall I do? Is the only thing that I can do just to accept the verdict?
    Bachelor degrees in England and Wales are usually 3 years, unless it is joint honours including a foreign language when it is 4 years. Bachelor degrees in Scotland are 4 years.

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    Bachelor degrees in Australia and New Zealand are also 3 years.


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    Bachelor's degrees here were - until the class of 2010 or 2011, not sure - 3 year degrees as well. Furthermore, the fourth year is more like a zeroth-year. Secondary education used to be seven years (for university applicants) and is now six. If the council did not look at the range of subjects covered then this is indeed a bit of a joke. Is your master's a one- or two-year degree?
    May I ask why you needed your degree assessed by the council? I entered graduate school here in 2007 and all schools that I applied to were happy to assess my degree themselves....

    drumbrake likes this.

  6. #6

    If the council did not look at the range of subjects covered then this is indeed a bit of a joke. Is your master's a one- or two-year degree?
    May I ask why you needed your degree assessed by the council? I entered graduate school here in 2007 and all schools that I applied to were happy to assess my degree themselves....[/QUOTE]

    I needed to have it assessed for entering Chinese University. In the end it did not make such a big difference as I only needed a Bachelor's degree to enter the programme that I wanted-but it can always come in useful for the future to have your degrees assessed in a formal, correct way, right? They did look at the subjects that I took. From what I understand, this should be the official organisation that is responsible for doing these kind of assessments, so I assume they would know what they were doing?!


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  8. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by bibbju:
    Bachelor degrees in England and Wales are usually 3 years, unless it is joint honours including a foreign language when it is 4 years. Bachelor degrees in Scotland are 4 years.
    Actually, a bachelor degree in Scotland is also 3 years, an extra year is for honours.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Stoob:
    Actually, a bachelor degree in Scotland is also 3 years, an extra year is for honours.
    Why would someone choose to take a degree without honours????


    Sent from my iPhone using GeoClicks

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    Quote Originally Posted by bibbju:
    Why would someone choose to take a degree without honours????


    Sent from my iPhone using GeoClicks
    honours thing always confused me in English universities.

    Down under it is small percentage who do an extra year for honours. If you do an honours degree, getting a masters takes 1 year. If you do a masters straight after you bachelors it is 2 years and it usually called a masters with honours. Most seem to go for the 2 year masters option.

    When I moved to the UK, and was doing recruiting for my company, all the applicants for graduate designer posts had an honours degree. I'm still not sure if it involved an extra year.

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