Английский ( Топики/Сочинения ): Education in Great Britain – Образование в Великобритании (5) |

Introduction.

Great Britain is one of
the most developed countries in the world. Great Britain enters into
the number of countries of “large eight”.

We
all know that the Britains are very cultural people and many possess
an outstanding mind. What makes them similar? National culture,
heredity, traditions or may be education? But do many people in our
country know about education in other countries? Many students would
like to know about how their contemporaries in other countries live.
In what schools do they study? Does the state ensure all them with
necessary means for studying? What are their chances to obtain higher
or technical education for worthy life in the future?

This
article opens the curtain above education in Britain and contains
sufficiently complete and comprehensive information for the student
and school staff. The purpose of this article is to study the system
of education in Britain and to look at from an objective point of
view.

In
the second half of the 20-century qualitative changes in education
system occurred in Britain: the system of education began to be more
oriented towards the development of useful knowledge. But in spite of
this in the British system of education many survivals of the past,
which strongly harm education, still remained.

In
this synopsis the following reductions are accepted:

• A-level
  (advance level)
  – an examination usually taken by pupils at their final year
  at school at the age of eighteen. The exam was introduced in 1951.
  A-levels are needed to enter most types of higher education and a
  student must usually have three good grades to enter university.

• AS
  level (advanced supplementary level) –
  an examination taken by some pupils in their final year at school
  when they are taking their A-level. The AS level is a simpler
  examination than the A-level and can be studied in half the time.
  The exam was first introduced in 1989 and is intended to give pupils
  the chance to study a greater variety of subjects.

• Cathedral
  school (choir school) –
  a school in a cathedral city, usually a preparatory school or,
  occasionally, a public school, some of their pupils sing in the
  cathedral choir.

• College
  of Further Education (CFE)
  – a local
  college attended mostly by students between the ages of 16 and 19
  who are working for the NVQ’s and practical qualifications; by
  some students taking A-levels and by mature students doing part-time
  courses.

• College
  – 1. An
  independent institution of higher education within a university,
  typically one at Oxford University or Cambridge University. 2. A
  specialized professional institution of secondary higher education,
  such as a college of music or a college of education. 3. The
  official title of certain public schools, such as Eton College.

• Comprehensive
  school –
  a large state secondary school for children of all abilities from a
  single district, providing a wide range of education. Over 90% of
  all secondary school students attend a comprehensive school.
  Comprehensive schools were introduced in 1965 to provide an equal
  secondary (11 – 18 years old) education. Comprehensive schools
  put pupils in different classes according to their ability, but
  there are no entry examinations.

• Further
  education
  – a term used to apply to any kind of education after
  secondary school, but not including university work (which is higher
  education).

• General
  Certificate of Education, the (GCE)
  – the standard school-leaving examination. It is taken by
  school pupils at the end of their fifth year of secondary education,
  at the age of 16. The GCE replaced the formed dual examination
  system of GCE O-level (General Certificate of Education Ordinary
  Level) and SCE (Certificate of Secondary Education, Ordinary Level),
  and the first GCSE examination were held in 1988. GCSE certificates
  are awarded for each subject on a seven-point scale, from A to G,
  and the examination’s syllabus and grading procedures are
  monitored by the School Examination and Assessment Council.

• Local
  Educational Authority (LEA)
  – the local government body that is responsible for the state
  schools in a district, as well as further education, and that
  engages teachers, maintains school buildings and supplies schools
  with equipment and materials.

• National
  Curriculum (NC)
  – was introduced into the education system in 1989. Until that
  time LEA decided on the curriculum, the subjects which would be
  taught in school in their area. The NC is designed to make a
  national standard for all school pupils between the ages of 5 to 16.
  The main subjects are English, Mathematics, Science and a foreign
  language, either French or German. There are examinations for all
  pupils at the ages of 7, 11, 14, and 16 to check on their progress.

• Oxbridge
  – a colloquial term for the universities of Oxford and
  Cambridge, jointly regarded as being superior to other universities
  and as enjoying and giving special privilege and prestige.

• Secondary
  school –
  a state school or private school education for school children aged
  between 11 and 18. Other types of secondary schools are grammar
  schools, middle schools, secondary modern schools, technical schools
  and public schools. An extension of a state secondary schools a
  tertiary college.

• Nursery
  school –
  a school for very young children, usually three or four years old
  (before compulsory education, which begins at the age of five).

• Pidgin
  English (PE)
  – 1. A language made up of elements of English and some other
  foreign language, especially Chinese or Japanese, originally
  developing as a means of verbal communication when trading. 2.
  Loosely, any kind of English spoken with the elements of another
  language, whether for genuine communication or of comic effect.

§1.
Education.

The British educational
system has much in common with that in Europe, in that:

• Full-time
  education is compulsory for all children in the middle teenage
  years. Parents
  are required by law to see that their children receive full-time
  education, at school or elsewhere, between the ages of 5 and 16 in
  England, Scotland and Wales and 4 and 16 in Northern Ireland.

• The academic
  year begins at the end of summer.

• Compulsory
  education is free of charge, though parents may choose a private
  school and spend their money on education their children. About
  93% of pupils receive free education from public funds, while the
  others attend independent schools financed by fees paid by parents.

• There
  are three stages of schooling, with
  children moving from primary school (the first stage) to secondary
  school (the second stage). The third stage (sometimes called the
  tertiary level) provides further and higher education and includes
  CFE, technical college, college of higher education, and
  universities.

There is, however, quite
a lot that distinguishes education in Britain from the way it works
in other countries. The most important distinguishing features are
the lack of
uniformity and
comparativly little
central control.
There are three separate government departments managing education:
the Departments for Education and Employment is responsible for
England and Wales alone; Scotland and Northern Ireland retain control
over the education within their respective countries. None of these
bodies exercises much control over the details does not prescribe a
detailed program of learning, books and materials to be used, nor
does it dictate the exact hours of the school day, the exact days of
holidays, school’s finance management and suchlike. As many
details as possible are left to the discretion of the individual
institution or of the LEA.

Many distinctive
characteristics of British education can be ascribed, at least
partly, to the public school tradition. The present-day level of
‘grass-root’ independence as well as different approach
to education has been greatly influenced by the philosophy that a
(public) school is its own community. The 19^th
century public schools educated the sons of the upper and
upper-middle classes and the main aim of schooling was to prepare
young men to take up positions in the higher ranks of the army, the
Church, to fill top-jobs in business, the legal profession, the civil
serves and politics. To meet this aim the emphasis was made on
‘character-building’ and the development of ‘team
spirit’ (hence traditional importance of sports) rather than on
academic achievement.

Such
schools were (and still often are) mainly boarding establishments, so
they had a deep and lasting influence on their pupils, consequently,
public-school leavers formed a closed group entry into which was
difficult, the ruling elite, the core of the Establishment.

The 20^th
century brought education and its possibilities for social
advancement within everybody’s reach, and new, state schools
naturally tended to copy the features of the public schools. So
today, in typically British fashion, learning for its own sake,
rather than for any practical purpose is still been given a high
value. As distinct from most other countries, a relatively stronger
emphasis is on the quality of person that education produces rather
than helping people to develop useful knowledge and skills. In other
words, the general style of teaching is to develop understanding
rather than acquiring factual knowledge and learning to apply this
knowledge to specific tasks.

This
traditional public-school approach, together with the above-mentioned
dislike of central authority, also helps to explain another thing:
the NC, the purpose of which was to do away with the disparities in
the type and quality of education, was not introduced until 1989 –
much later than in other countries.

§2.
Pre-school and primary education.

There is no countrywide
system of nursery (or pre-primary) schools. In some areas there are
nursery schools and classes (or, in England, reception classes in
primary schools), providing informal education and play facilities,
but they are not compulsory and only 25% of 3-4 year-olds attend
them. There are also some private nurseries and pre-school playgroups
organized and paid by parents themselves where children are brought
twice a week for an hour or two.

The
present Labour government is working to expand pre-school education
and wants all children to begin school with basic foundation in
literacy and numeracy, or what is know as ‘the three Rs’
(Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic). From September 1998 it is
providing free nursery education in England and Wales for all
4-year-olds whose parents want it.

The average child begins
his or her compulsory education at the age of 5 starting primary
school (infant
schools are for
children between at the ages of 5 and 7 and junior
schools for those
between the ages of 8 and 11).

§3.
Secondary education.

The majority of state
secondary school pupils in England and Wales attend comprehensive
schools. These largely take pupils without reference to ability or
aptitude and provide a wide range of secondary education for all or
most children in a district. Schools take those, who are the 11 to 18
age-range, middle schools (8 to 14), and schools with an age-range
from 11 to 16. Most other state-educated children in England attend
grammar or secondary modern schools, to which they are allocated
after selection procedures at the age of 11.

Before 1965 a selective
system of secondary education existed in England. Under that system a
child of 11 had to take an exam (known as ‘an 11 ’),
which consisted of intelligence tests covering linguistic,
mathematical and general knowledge and which was to be taken by
children in the last year of primary schooling. The object was to
select between academic and non-academic children. Those who did
well in the examination went to a grammar
school, while those
who failed went to a secondary
modern school
and technical college. Grammar schools prepared children for national
examinations such as the GCE at O-level and A-level. These
examinations qualified children for the better jobs, and for entry
higher education and the professions. The education in secondary
modern schools was based on practical schooling, which would allow
entry into a variety of skilled and unskilled jobs.

Many people complained
that it was wrong for a person’s future to be decided at a so
young age. The children who went to ‘secondary moderns’
were seen as ‘failures’. More over, it was noticed that
the children who passed this exam were almost all from middle-class
families. The Labour Party, among other critics, argued that the 11
examination was socially divisible, increasing the