Great responsibilities will rest on his shoulders one day. But in the meantime, Prince William is going back to being a student.

The future king starts a ten-week course in agricultural management at Cambridge University next week.

The ‘bespoke’ course has been organised for the 31-year-old Duke of Cambridge to give him an understanding of issues affecting farms and rural communities.

It will also, no doubt, come in handy when he inherits the Duchy of Cornwall, one of the biggest private estates in the country, from his father.

The second in line to the throne, who has a geography degree from St Andrew’s University, will have around 20 hours a week of timetabled lectures, seminars and meetings.

He will also be expected to undertake extensive study in his own time and may be sent on field trips.

Although he will still be based at Kensington Palace with the Duchess of Cambridge and son George, staff have organised private accommodation for the prince when he needs to stay in Cambridge.

He is likely to be away from home two or three nights a week. The course is run by Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, an institution within the university’s School of Technology and has Prince Charles as its patron.

However, Prince William will be based in the Department of Land Economy, teasingly referred to by other students as the ‘Department of Grass Management’.

The Duke will not be awarded any qualification at the end of the course, which he is set to finish in mid-March – shortly before he sets off on an official tour of New Zealand and Australia with his family. An aide said: ‘Like his father, the Duke is very much a countryman, he enjoys and is passionate about the countryside and its people.

‘He will continue to take an interest in and champion rural communities but this course will also, of course, be useful to him in future years.’ The cost of the study and accommodation is being met privately, a Kensington Palace spokesman said yesterday.

Aides were also quick to stress that as it was being organised specially for the prince, there was no question of any other student places being affected.

Prince William quit operational service with the Armed Forces in September after more than seven years. His most recent posting was as a search and rescue pilot with the RAF based in Anglesey, North Wales.

In the autumn, Kensington Palace announced that the Duke did not plan to become a full-time working royal immediately, preferring a ‘transitional period’ in which he would undertake public service and work experience-style placements ranging from government departments to charity offices.

Critics, however, have accused the prince of being ‘workshy’ and derided that plan as little more than an extended gap year.

Prince Charles graduated with a 2:2 degree in history at Trinity College Cambridge after studying there from 1967 to 1970. His father, the Duke of Edinburgh, served as chancellor of the university from 1976 to 2011.