The Graduate School is a common program of doctoral studies in the Faculty of Education. Its purpose is to manage and coordinate the various activities taking place in the doctoral studies. In order to fulfil this task common frames of the program are planned, arranged and evaluated. The supply of individual courses in the departments is integrated and adjusted to the totality of the program. The Graduate School provides opportunities for graduate studies to qualified and motivated students in the research areas represented in the faculty. The personnel of the graduate school consist of all professors and doctors of the faculty as supervisors and mentors as well as of doctoral students in the three departments The doctoral students are mainly of three kinds. First, there are some doctoral students belonging to the national graduate schools financed by the Ministry of Education and the Academy of Finland. Second, there is a group of doctoral students whose studies are financed somehow or other. A part of them are assistants working in the departments. In addition to their doctoral studies they may have certain teaching responsibilities and other tasks. The assistants are usually recruited for five years. Another part of this group is doctoral students financed by some grant or scholarship generally for a shorter time, usually for a year at a time. Third, the large majority of doctoral students are teachers or other participants who are studying besides their daily work and are financing their studies themselves. Students may start the doctoral studies as soon as they have obtained the Master's degree. With full-time positions the study time is expected to be 4-5 years, with part-time studies it naturally takes more time. The common parts of the program mainly consist of courses in philosophy of science, research methodology, and academic writing in English as well as of lectures of international experts visiting the departments. Participation with own papers in the international congresses also belongs to the activities of the students. In order to increase international cooperation the faculty has invited well-known international experts to act as visiting professors. They are expected to visit the faculty one or two times a year, from two to four weeks at a time and give lectures, participate in seminar workshops and supervise individual students. The supervising is expected to continue as distance interaction during intervals. The purpose here is to present some theoretical aspects in building a program for doctoral studies. Some preliminary results from interviews of doctoral students are also presented. The interviews deal mainly with contextual factors of the studies, hindrances and financial problems being in the focus. In addition, some results of the interviews of the professors (25) in the faculty are presented.