Licentiate (degree)

In response to these escalating abuses of power, Pope Alexander III demanded that a free licentia docendi should be granted to anyone deemed qualified to teach.

[6][7] Originally, for the student in the medieval university the licentia docendi was of a somewhat different nature than the academic degrees of bachelor, master or doctor.

The latter essentially indicated the rank of seniority in the various faculties (arts, theology, law, medicine), whereas the licentia was literally the licence to teach.

Candidates are expected to demonstrate a masterful command of the instrument and communicate an understanding of stylistic characteristics and structural elements of each repertoire selection with interpretive insight and a mature musical personality.

It was gradually substituted with the "Doctor's exam" in 1969 and was re-instituted as an intermediate level in research training in the 1980s, now requiring only two years of study after Masters graduation.

The Licentiate of Engineering is an intermediate postgraduate degree used only in a few countries, among them Sweden and Finland, and can be seen as an academic step halfway between a Master's and a PhD.

[24] As in many Latin American countries, the licenciatura is a general term denoting the first higher-education degree awarded at universities, varying from three to five years of study, depending on the field.

In Mexico, a distinction is made between simply passing all the required courses, just being a graduate (graduado or pasante), and actually obtaining the degree diploma (título profesional).

Some professions do not require the professional credential, but for others, like medicine, accounting, civil engineering, or social work, it is mandatory by law.

By their nature, some disciplines, such as nursing, medicine and law, require an intense theoretical background, as well as practical training, and so a first university degree in those areas may take longer to complete (up to 6 years).

The Photographic Society of New Zealand awards a licentiateship, Licentiate (LPSNZ), for "proficiency of a high order in practical photography."

This means the applicant must demonstrate sound basic technical ability, along with good compositional skill, and awareness of lighting.

This degree is awarded upon completion of four years of study in a specific field of study – e.g., Licenciatura de Docencia en inglés (Licentiate in Teaching of English), and qualifies the recipient to pursue a master's degree, or teach at a high school or middle school level with additional training.

In order to be able to teach at university level, the recipient of a licentiate must complete the Posgrado de Docencia Superior (Postgraduate of Tertiary Education), which may be obtained before or after a master's degree.

To obtain a "Licenciatura" or "Título Profesional" the student is required to write a thesis (usually that developed during their bachelor course), and pass their viva voce.

Alternatively, it is possible to complete a written exam and then an oral examination in front of a group of professors (who are registered in the professional college/body of that specific profession).

Therefore, for some professions which used to be called "carreras largas" or long careers (e.g. dentistry, law, psychology and medicine), the student requires more than five years of studies or ten semesters to become a member of a professional body.

Nowadays, some universities do not use the word Licenciado or Licenciada as a prefix before the professional title, e.g. Licenciado/a en Farmacia y Bioquímica (Licentiate in Pharmacy and Biochemistry) in their certificates.

The Master's degree entails a two-year program of study, in which students can normally enroll after completing a licentiate's degree, and provides higher qualification for employment (e.g., for Architecture or Medicine a Master's is required, as well as for some Engineering branches, entailing a total of 5 to 6 years of post-secondary studies) or to prepare a student for his or her PhD research or work permit from the regulatory and licensing body for profession in Portugal.

It was a degree higher than the graduate diploma obtained after three years of study, which was mostly used in pedagogical institutes that trained secondary education teachers, and was considered inferior to the doctorate.

This degree is currently being phased out at Spanish universities, replaced by the 'Grado' and 'Master' system due to the implementation of the Bologna Declaration on the European higher education area.

In addition, there existed a third cycle, comprising PhD degrees (doctorado, which included one or two years of research oriented courses and the completion of a thesis towards the same doctor diploma).

However, students could elect to study specialized three-year degrees from the outset (diplomaturas, and arquitecturas técnicas—technical engineering), which, after successful completion, would give access to the second cycle of a number of Licenciaturas.

A Licenciatura degree also provided direct access to professional practice or membership in professional associations such as Bar Associations for lawyers (Colegio de Abogados, until Bar membership requirements were changed to include a minimum amount of legal work experience and passing an exam), medicine, economics, and other regulated professions.

This royal decree also describes the procedure for applying for a personal certificate stating the equivalence of a given pre-Bologna title to the new Bologna levels.

After the Bologna process, all official university degrees will fall into one of these three categories: Grado (Bachelor), Master or Doctor.

Further, the licentiate degree also grants the holder the "licence" to teach at any Catholic university, seminary or pontifical faculty anywhere around the world.

The Licentiate of Apothecaries' Hall (LAH) was a similar qualifying medical diploma awarded externally in Dublin until recognition was lost in 1968.

In Dublin, students at the School of Medicine of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland still qualify with licentiate diplomas from the two Irish Royal Colleges, coupled with a Licence in Midwifery from each, although in the past few years they have also been awarded the three medical bachelor's degrees of the National University of Ireland: Certain maternity hospitals in Dublin used to award a Licentiate in Midwifery or LM diploma, not to midwives but to qualified medical practitioners who had been examined there after a three-month residential appointment.

at many universities, a two-year program for an MA, and the writing and successful defense of the doctoral dissertation for the PhD, Th.D., or STD (an additional two to three years).