A postgraduate diploma is a postgraduate qualification awarded typically after a bachelor's degree

Bachelor's degree

A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...

. It can be contrasted with a graduate diploma

Graduate Diploma

A Graduate Diploma is generally a postgraduate qualification, although some graduate diplomas involve the study of undergraduate level courses...

. Countries which award postgraduate diplomas include Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

, the United Kingdom, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

, the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

, Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 and Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

.

Australia and New Zealand

Australian and New Zealand universities offer postgraduate diplomas (PostGradDip). A postgraduate diploma indicates Masters-level studies. A bachelor's degree is required, although in some rare cases an advanced diploma is sufficient.First year of MS and MBA courses are called as postgraduate diplomas,if second year also completed then the courses are called as MS and MBA.

Canada

In Canada, a postgraduate certificate program consists of two to three semesters, which can be completed in less than one year. A Bachelor degree or a diploma is required to be accepted in this type of program. It offers the advantage of not requiring to write a thesis and to focus on a concise subject. It is recommended for students wishing to enhance their professional skills as it concentrates on a more practical application in order to enter the labour market. Depending on the province, the title can vary: Advanced Diploma, Post-Graduate Diploma, Post-Graduate Certification, Post-Baccalaureate or D.E.S.S. (in the Province of Quebec).

England and Wales, Scotland

There are a number of postgraduate diplomas available in England and Wales. This could be a vocational course studied after an academic degree

Academic degree

An academic degree is a position and title within a college or university that is usually awarded in recognition of the recipient having either satisfactorily completed a prescribed course of study or having conducted a scholarly endeavour deemed worthy of his or her admission to the degree...

, such as the Legal Practice Course

Legal Practice Course

The Legal Practice Course also known as the Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practiceis the vocational stage for becoming a solicitor in England and Wales. The course is the successor to Law Society Finals and is more vocational in its syllabus. The LPC can be taken in many different formats including...

 or the Bar Vocational Course; the resulting diplomas allow the student to enter legal training, relevant to either the solicitor

Solicitor

Solicitors are lawyers who traditionally deal with any legal matter including conducting proceedings in courts. In the United Kingdom, a few Australian states and the Republic of Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers , and a lawyer will usually only hold one title...

 or barrister

Barrister

A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...

 professions, respectively. Alternatively, postgraduate diplomas allow a graduate student to study a new academic subject at degree level, but in a short space of time. For example, the Graduate Diploma in Law also known as the Common Professional Exam, allows a postgraduate student to study the seven foundation subjects of a three year undergraduate law degree, in a period of nine months. Postgraduate diplomas that last a year or longer are often considered equivalent to a master's degree. They are typically classified into Distinction, Merit, and Pass, similar to most Master's courses.

A postgraduate diploma is commonly awarded to students who have completed most or all of the courses of a Master's programme, but did not do the Master's dissertation.

A postgraduate diploma typically represents 120 credits of postgraduate courses (whereas a full Master's degree is usually 180 credits) Postgraduate Diplomas are usually abbreviated PGDip, PG Dip, PgD, PgDip, or PGD compare with PGCert.

Republic of Ireland

The postgraduate diploma (Dioplóma Iarchéime in Irish

Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

) has been awarded by the Higher Education and Training Awards Council

Higher Education and Training Awards Council

The Higher Education and Training Awards Council , the legal successor to the National Council for Educational Awards , grants higher education awards in Ireland in the extra-university system...

 since June 2005 in institutions associated with the council. This is purely a professional type course compared to the graduate diploma it replaced, and is offered in arts

ARts

aRts, which stands for analog Real time synthesizer, is an audio framework that is no longer under development. It is best known for previously being used in KDE to simulate an analog synthesizer....

, business

Business

A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...

, engineering

Engineering

Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...

, and science

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

 initially.

Singapore

The Postgraduate Diploma is a postgraduate academic qualification taken after a Bachelor's degree

Bachelor's degree

A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...

. It is usually awarded by a University

University

A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...

 or a Graduate school

Graduate school

A graduate school is a school that awards advanced academic degrees with the general requirement that students must have earned a previous undergraduate degree...

. It usually takes 2 or more study terms to complete, a wide variety of courses are offered. It is also possible for graduate diploma holders to progress to a Master's degree

Master's degree

A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...

. Only Postgraduate diplomas that are registered with the Ministry of Education (Singapore)

Ministry of Education (Singapore)

The Ministry Of Education is a ministry of the Government of Singapore that directs the formulation and implementation of policies related to education in Singapore.-Statutory boards:...

 are recognised by the industry.
The Graduate Diploma in Information-Communication Technology offered by Nanyang Technological University(ICIS).

The graduate diploma programme in Information-Communication Technology (G Dip ICT) is designed to meet the formal training needs of graduate professionals in the face of rapid technological changes and increasing demand for manpower skilled in information communication technologies. It provides graduates with the essential foundations, technical knowledge, and practical skills in computer communications, software technology and web applications. Graduate professionals who wish to enhance their professional skill base and those planning to join the Infocomm industry will benefit from the programme and gain the necessary technical skills and acumen for adapting to technological changes and meeting challenging demands in the Infocomm industry.

Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka, a postgraduate diploma is a postgraduate academic qualification taken after a Bachelor's degree

Bachelor's degree

A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...

. Most often it is awarded after the completion of the first year of study in a masters program.