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English Speaking Countries - Lecture 3
Part 1 – Education
Education in the UK comes under the responsibility of the Local Education
Authorities, whilst the central government plays a very little role. The Department of Education which is part of the central government makes educational policies and provides funding through their budget. In the budgetary year of 2003/2004, 13% of the total UK?s budget was spent on education or ￡59 billion.
Educational Policy
Currently children between the ages of 5 and 16 have compulsory education. Currently, schooling is divided into four stages. Between the ages of 5 and 11, is primary, 11 to 16 secondary, 16 to 18 further education and 18 to 22+ Higher Education.
Up to the 1960s and 70s, many LEAs thought that students should be taught according to their abilities. All children were given an examination called the eleven-plus which dictated which type of secondary school they went to. The top students went to Grammar School where they would stay until they were 18. Grammar school also prepared students for University. Today only two counties in the whole country still have grammar schools. The middle ability students went to technical schools which focused on vocational training. The lowest scoring students went to secondary modern schools.
In the 1960s and 1970s a new school was introduced called comprehensives which largely replaced the group of three.
In 1988, Margaret Thatcher introduced the national curriculum. This was a
nationwide standard curriculum of which there was not before. The curriculum was divided into three stages.
Stage 1 was for children aged 5 and 6. Stage 2 was for the ages 6 to 11. Stage 3 was ages 11 to 14 and the final stage 4 for the ages 14 to 16. Many subjects were compulsory courses such as Mathematics, English, Science and technology. Some course such as history and geography were compulsory up to stage 3 and optional in 4. Languages are not taught until stage 3, mainly French and German.
Primary and Secondary Education There are two parallel systems in the primary and secondary education – state run and independent schools.
Independent schools are free from government control and there are around 2500 schools around the country including one of the most famous, Eton.
There are many differences between the two systems such as independent starts at 7 years old and lasts for six years. Many also have single sex classes though this has become less and less common over the past 20 years.
As mentioned before, State secondary schools are for ages 11 to 16 but independent schools are from 13 to 16.
At the end of secondary school, all students will take their GCSE?s (General
Certificate of Secondary Education). Each student will take around 9 or 10 exams (or maybe more) on the subjects they had studied since they were 14. Grades A to C are pass, D, E, F, G and U are fails.
When finishing secondary school, some students elect to start working whilst some continue their study.
The majority of young people continue their study at sixth forms whilst some do it at colleges.
Most students study 3 or 4 GCE A levels which last 2 years as well as some A/S levels which are just for one.
Since the early 1990?s, a new course called GNVQ (General National Vocational Qualification) was introduced. This course is more vocational and gives students more of an insight into working practices and there is a short period of work experience. There are several different vocational courses available such as Business and Child care.
A levels are the main way to enter University but in recent years, GNVQ has become accepted as well.
Independent Primary and Secondary School
In 2004, there were 2,300 Public Schools, 550 being boarding schools.
Public schools are generally better funded so are able to recruit a better standard of teacher plus class sizes are much smaller than state schools. The facilities are also usually better than state schools.
Public schools are not cheap – in 2004, it cost on average ￡7000 per term so about ￡21000 a year or 210,000RMB per year! Public schools usually are for the rich only but some are cheaper.
Higher Education
Britain boasts some of the oldest and most famous Universities in the world namely Oxford and Cambridge.
Unlike China, there is no national entrance exam into Universities. Each University in the UK has a standard which applicants must attain. If a student wishes to get
into Oxford or Cambridge, they must attain 4 or 5 A or A* grades in their A levels. One of the major changes in Higher Education over the past 20 years was the introduction of the Education Act of 1992. This act removed the distinction
between Universities and Polytechnic Colleges. Nearly all of the old “polys” have been renamed Universities.
A student has a choice of up to eight universities they can apply to. When the student receives their grades, they will be able to see which university of their original choices they can get into. Sometimes, students do not meet the grades that they needed and if they still wish to go to University, they go through a system called clearing. This system puts all the students and all the courses at every university with spaces into a pot. Most of the time, students get the course they wanted but at a lesser university or a completely different course but at the institution they wanted.
There are currently over 100 Universities in the UK and most of the main newspapers have league tables on the best performing institutions. In the 2010 Times league table, Oxford was top with Cambridge second.
Most of the bigger Universities especially Oxford and Cambridge are made up of several different colleges. Each one is made up with over thirty colleges located all over the city.
Today, one in three young British people are University educated whilst in the 1980s it was one in six. This may become less over the next 20 years especially as poorer families find it harder to send their children to University.
Before 1998, students did not have to pay tuition but today students/parents have to pay a fee. Degrees Normally, a degree course (BA – Bachelor of Arts, or BSC – Bachelor of Science) lasts for three years only.
A full time Masters degree is a year full time or two if done part time.
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