 Hello, my name is Alberto Square, I'm Program Director of Public Policy Management and Public Financial Management Programs, and I'm here in this webinar to provide you some information about these courses. Let me start by saying something about the University of London. These courses are offered within the Centre for Financial Management Studies of the Soros University of London, which is part of the University of London, which is a further university with 17 colleges and research institutes that has quite a long history as well as the international programs within the University of London. So since 1858, the University of London International Programs has been providing courses to quite a number of thousands of students all over the world, literally, and the courses that we offer at SEPHIM are just part of this overall framework. So SEPHIM has a Department of Soros provides courses at master's post-graduate level, like distance learning, which are recognized in the UK and also related to many other countries. At the moment we count over 2,500 students in more than 160 countries, and that's not the only centre within Soros which provides distance learning as you may find other courses of your interest, also in the Centre for the Environment, Environment and Policy and the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy. Let me start by describing what we do by pointing first at the range of short courses that we offer. These short courses result in the achievement of so-called individual professional awards. These courses last for eight weeks. So these are studies around the working day. Students receive a study pack and that they are expected to conduct to carry out the study on their own, but they still receive assistance from the side of tutors, which collaborate with the SEPHIM and which can be reached through our distance learning online platforms and by messaging communication tools. Students are required to submit two assignments within these models. These assignments are quite important as they provide a way for tutors to provide feedback to the students to know whether they are on the right track in their learning process. In addition to these students are expected to see the examinations in October. Each of the assignments counts for 15% of the total marks students receive from the model and the examination that students see in October comes for 70% of the marks. Examinations take place in the exam centres, which are scattered all over the world. On the website of the University of London International Progress, there is the full list of places like the British Council, for instance, which host examinations. Once the course has been successful, so students receive a certificate of achievement from the university. This provides a basis to update the knowledge and skills and expertise of people all over their working life. These individual professional courses or awards constitute the basic bricks, building blocks for building up fuller accreditations. So in fact, you may take up to three individual professional courses, but if you take four of them, then you can achieve a postgraduate diploma. If you take four more modules, then with a total of eight modules, you can reach a master's degree level, which counts as a total of eight modules, actually. So if you're interested to take a postgraduate diploma, you're expected to take four modules. There are a variety of postgraduate diplomas offered at SAFIM. Here you can see the full list, and I'm especially the director of the postgraduate diplomas on policy studies, public financial management, and public management. Here, let's go into details, and I can tell you first that in terms of master's programs, you may also choose between two MSc programs, public policy management, public financial management, which I direct, but still again, there are quite a variety of other MSc programs that you can choose from SAFIM. The expected time of completion of the MSc programs is between two and five years. It is doable to complete this MSc in two years, in a couple of years' time, but still we acknowledge that some of our students have more work or family commitments, and so they can devote just a part time of their effort to study, and so it is up to five years' time to complete these programs. Let's get into, let's zoom, let's focus on what is it within these programs. So to take the postgraduate diploma in policy studies, students are expected to take four modules out of this list, so we have topics which all relate generally to the processes of making, implementing, and evaluating policies, decentralization, local governance, privatization, public health partnership, project program policy evaluation, development assistance, perspective and issues on public policy and management, public policy and strategy, and the international monetary fund and the economic policy. The postgraduate diploma in public financial management has a different kind of models. Here students are expected to take more accounting-related courses like financial reporting, audit and compliance, training and performance, which relates to expenditure and budgeting, revenue, which also includes taxation, but to some extent there is also some overlap between these postgraduate diploma courses. And the same also for the postgraduate diploma in public management. Here as well you may find some modules like development assistance or perspective and issues on public policy and management that you may find also in other postgraduate diplomas, but there are also some specific modules like e-government, managing organizational change, and HR management and development. If you wanted to take an MSc program, so you're expected to take eight, eight modules, and there is a long list. So in total there are almost 20 modules or courses which are offered by SAFIM in the area of public policy management and public financial management. So for taking the MSc public policy management, this is a list of the modules that you can take and you can select eight of them. Let me say a couple of words more, however, about the possibility within the MSc program to take the dissertation module. The dissertation module comes as any other module, so you can do the dissertation rather than studying any of these particular subjects. However, before taking the dissertation, students are also required to take the research method module, which provides the general understanding of theoretical approaches, research methods of both quantitative and qualitative sorts, and within the research method module the students write down the plan for their dissertation. Usually the dissertation is then conducted in between February and the students are expected to submit by August or September, so it's about six plus something to announce time to write to work on the dissertation. So the dissertation plus the research methods count as two modules that the students may take, plus they need to take six other modules in order to complete the MSc. Dissertation is optional, however, students may decide whether to take it or not. And let me say also something more about our approach to assist the students in their process. So students are surrounded in a sense by various resources that we provide. So there are the personal tutors of the University of London and there is a structured approach to study scale. So students receive a study pack which includes a textbook, articles and the units. Each unit is like a lecture note and the students can read it and go through this text as if a lecture is explaining the subject and referring to the textbook, to the articles for additional study. There are eight units within the study pack, so they accompany the student within the eight-week period of study for each module if students can keep the pace to study each unit every week. So these units are especially written for our courses. In addition to these students, as I said earlier, they are required to submit assignments. So they receive feedback and marks which signal whether the student is on the right track in their study. They also receive a specimen exam to provide an idea of how the examinations in October look like. In addition to these, and especially also with the use of online resources, students have access to a virtual environment. They can participate to forums and so they can relate to other coursemates who study all around the world and typically they may share the same or similar kind of work experience. In addition to this, you have access to the University of London online library and also you can also find additional teaching resources. So this study material is delivered to you before the start of the study-study session and it comes in paper format. So students may enjoy the access online to our units and to some additional electronic resources, but they receive the physical pack of everything which they need to study and to know to pass the module, which is in this sense physically self-contained. So these readings are mainly in the forms of textbooks and key articles and chapters. Plus on the top of these, there are also additional resources to help students to navigate through this experience of studying online. As I said earlier, assignments play an important role within the learning process. So there are two of them. The first one is submitted after four weeks of study and the second one comes at the very end of the module after having studied for eight weeks, then the students submit their second assignment. Then there is the examination. This is three hours long and as I said earlier, this counts as 70% of the marks and this takes place in any of the University of London International Programme's exam centres in the world. You can check which is the nearest to you and which is the most convenient for you. This period of study of eight weeks run one after the other. So there are five study sessions back here. There is a study calendar which is on the website of SAFIN and the students can in advance anticipate which modules are running in every particular session. So they can schedule, they can plan in advance which course or module they want to take in each particular session. If they study hard, they may take five modules one after the other and so to prepare for city fire exams in any particular year. So there are study sessions eight weeks long. They start roughly November, January, April, June and July. Generally, there is no one running on September as this is more of a period of studying for preparing for exams in October. So next application close date is the 12th of September 2016 but please you can check the website of SAFIN to check for next application deadlines. Generally we expect our students to hold a good first level, first undergraduate degree at the upper second class UK level or equivalent. Generally in any discipline most of our students come from a social science discipline but mainly also come from a more engineering science and so on. Generally we take also professional experience into account. Some of our students are just recently graduated from university but others instead are quite experienced professionals with several decades of experience behind their shoulders and the receipt from our courses way to update their knowledge or possibly to have a shift in career towards other areas. So these courses are taught in English so we expect you to be enough proficient with the language. The fees at present come at 1,260 pounds per module that you can either pay all the plans when registering for a postgraduate diploma or an NSE or you can pay as you go just before every single module that you want that you expect to start. So our students as I said earlier come literally from everywhere in the world. Many of them have the working experience especially at the central government level, sub-national government as well, international organizations also companies working in the private sector and many of our students of course pursue their career within these particular environments. So I hope this information was was fine for you and I'd like to ask if any has any question. As I get the sense there could be no questions but I thank you for your attention. Please be in touch with us if you have any additional question and I look forward to see you attending any of our any of our programs.