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Despite the runaway expansion of the undergraduate sector, it is losing ground to the postgraduate boom. The market leader for graduates is the MA – dominated by the “taught” MA over the “research” Masters. In 1998, there were 206,000 MAs; in 2002-3, 258,000.This rapid expansion has increased university revenues, because fees are unregulated, but it has also imposed big costs. Large universities have had to employ special staff, while smaller ones have run academics and back-room staff ragged trying to keep up. Universities are under pressure to treat postgraduate students more professionally and develop their skills in a structured way. All this adds more costs.”There are five systems of recruitment in the postgraduate area – and some universities have all five on the go,” says Mike Hill, chief executive of Graduate Prospects, the official graduate careers support service, which is UCAS’ partner in the project. The five range from bespoke online networks to “back of an envelope” informal internal applications.

The new proposed centralised online system will not do away with them, but will radically reduce the burden because it focuses on the full-time taught MA – a core part of the market. A single system will not only, it is hoped, deal with the problems of scale.”The problem is that what happens – even in the best-run institutions – is that students you expect don’t turn up, they’ve made a series of applications and said yes to all of them, and then they make a decision and never tell the others,” says Brian Salter, academic registrar at King’s College, London. “Equally, internal applicants can just turn up.” Salter welcomes the prospect of rationalisation – especially as it should cut the application process down from months to weeks – but hopes that the project will move on to encompass the far larger part-time taught MA market.Anthony McClaran, UCAS’ chief executive, says the new system will provide much needed certainty. Sophie Dixon, 23, is doing an MSc in festival production and management at Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh

Six years ago, I was on holiday with my family in Portugal, and my dad said, “Come on, we’re going to see a bullfight, you’ll love it” I thought, no, that’s barbaric and horrible. The Postgraduate Project, as it is known, is due to be implemented in September for students starting an MA in 2007. “The skills you develop and learn are exactly what you will use when you get a job, and being a student on the course is actually like being a real journalist.”I don’t think it’s necessary to be trained at Masters level to get a career in journalism. But, again, it just depends how hard you are willing to try and how hard you are willing to work and how much you want it.”I wouldn’t change what I have done, but if I’d had the option of doing an MA when I graduated last year, I would probably have done it,” Taylor says..

He has now secured a job at the Press Association.”It’s not until you leave university and try to make your way in the world of journalism that you realise just how good the course is and just how much it has prepared you for the industry,” Taylor says. Is it a credible and necessary qualification? And will it yield concrete results in the job market?Sean Taylor graduated from Staffordshire University in 2004 with a BA in journalism and has since gone on to be published by noted sports publications such as FourFourTwo, the official Manchester United magazine and the Union of European Football Associations (Uefa) website. If you’re trying to interpret that, it requires a skill set and a range of knowledge that are distinctive.”Yet, however strong a case Ward puts forward, several further questions must be asked of the Staffordshire degree because it is, first, postgraduate study, and second, vocational. “Sport [is] something that has worked its way into the psyche of the nation, the economic and social fabric – you’ve only got to see the reaction to the Ashes. “We would only put someone on the course if we felt that they were capable of reaching industry professional standards You have to live and breathe sport. Sport is like a foreign language – it’s my second language after English Unless someone has that, I wouldn’t even consider them.

You have to be passionate about the course: it can’t just be a passing whim.”Such sentiments would undoubtedly be echoed by Mike Ward, the head of journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, where sports journalism is taught as a Bachelors degree. Last month, Ward appeared on Radio 4’s weekly media show The Message and presented a polished case for his trade.”We felt that sports journalism had evolved into a field of study that embraces such a broad area,” he said. The amount of resources reflects how serious the university is about the course.”And all applicants must, in turn, reflect this commitment, Pryce says. “If you come up to Stoke, you’ll see our technical equipment is second to none We have training days when we run a live sports room It’s a credit to the university’s investment. Students will also enjoy regular visits from professional news broadcasters, as both speakers and guest editors of the practice bulletins.”We’re marrying the practical with the theory,” Madden says. Nine students had opted to study in the same department as their first degree, four were moving to a different department or university and 11 were coming back into full-time education after a period in the labour market.The researchers conducted interviews at the beginning and end of the Masters course, six months after graduation and then a further 12 months later. All this provides ample opportunity for those taking the course to become acquainted with the equipment widely used in the industry.

And the credentials of the tutors are matched by the facilities available to the students.Last April, with the help of the former BBC director general Greg Dyke, Staffordshire University unveiled its cutting-edge newsroom, including an open-plan TV studio and gallery and suite of sound-proofed radio studios. If there is the enthusiasm we’re starting to see at Staffordshire, why shouldn’t universities be providing that opportunity?” This demand led to a call from the Broadcast Journalism Training Council for graduates with sharper skills – and so begat what Pryce calls “a kind of finishing school”.Pryce, an award-winning TV producer, is joined at the helm by Lawrie Madden, former professional footballer and contributor to The Daily Telegraph, the News of the World, Sky Sports and GMTV. “But it’s increasingly popular and, in particular, sports journalism has hit the roof. This September, the institution, which has campuses at Stoke, Stafford and Lichfield, launched a new Masters degree in sports broadcast journalism, an addition to the existing Bachelors degree of the same name, to produce the Gary Linekers of the future.
“Media Studies is a soft target,” concedes Mitch Pryce, overseer of the fledgling course. It is always on your CV and bringing something a bit more to the table.