Education.

The basic features of the British educational system are

the same as they are anywhere else in Europe and North
America: full-time education is compulsory up to the
middle teenage years; the academic year begins at the
end of summer; compulsory education is free of charge,
but parents may spend money on educating their child
privately if they want to (Public means private!). There
are three recognized stages, with children moving from
the first stage (primary) to the second stage (secondary)
at around the age of eleven or twelve. However, there is
quite a lot which distinguishes education in Britain from
the way it works in other countries. Much of this is the
result of history.
Historical background
British governments attached little importance to
education until the end of the nineteenth century. It was
one of the last countries in Europe to organize education
for everybody. (Britain was leading the world in industry
and commerce, so, it was felt, education must somehow
be taking care of itself.) Schools and other educational
institutions (such as universities) existed in Britain long
before the government began to take an interest. When
it finally did so, it did not sweep the existing institutions
away, nor did it always take them over. In typically British
fashion, it sometimes incorporated them into the overall
system and sometimes left them alone. Most
importantly, the government left alone the small group of
schools which were used to educate the sons of the
upper and upper-middle classes. At these 'public' schools
(The public school system), the emphasis was on
"character building' and the development of team spirit'
rather than on academic achievement. This involved the
use of distinctive customs attitudes, clothes, and items of
vocabulary. They were all 'boarding schools' (that is, the
pupils lived there), so they had a deep and lasting
influence on their pupils. Their aim was to prepare young
men to take up positions in the higher ranks of the army,
in business, the legal profession, the civil service, the
church, and politics.
When the pupils from these schools finished their
education, they formed the ruling elite, retaining the
distinctive habits and vocabulary which they had learnt at
school. They formed a closed group, to a great extent
separate from the rest of society, entry into which was
difficult for anybody who had had a different education.
When, in the twentieth century, education and its
possibilities for social advancement came within
everybody's reach, new schools tended to copy the
features of the public schools. After all, they were the
only model of a successful school that the country had.

Modern times: the education debates

Before the election which brought the Labour party to
power in 1997, its leader, Tony Blair, declared that his
three main priorities were 'Education, education,
education'. This emphasis testified to a general feeling in
Britain that there was something very wrong with its
system of education. It was not a new feeling. Perhaps
because of its rather slow start, the British have long felt
a little inadequate about their public educational
provision. Education is the area of public life about which
British people and governments feel the most uncertain.
No other area has been subject to so many changes in
the last quarter of a century.
Debates about education in Britain centre around three
matters. One of these is quality. For decades, there has
been a widespread feeling that British schoolchildren do
not get taught properly and do not learn enough, and
that they are less literate and less numerate than their
European counterparts. Whether or not this is or was
ever true is a matter of opinion. But these days it is
common for employers and universities to complain that
their new recruits do not have the necessary basic
knowledge or skills (The three Rs) and there is much talk
about 'grade inflation' with respect to exam results (i.e.
the standard of a top 'A' grade is lower than it used to
be).
Moreover, there is no doubt that Britain suffers from a
chronic shortage of teachers (Help from abroad).
Although many young people embark on teacher-training
courses, only about half of them remain in the profession
for longer than three years, so that schools often have an
unsettled atmosphere due to rapid turnover of staff and
class sizes are large. (In 2003, British primary schools had
more children per teacher than any country in Europe
except Turkey.)
Why is it so hard for British schools to recruit, and keep,
teachers? One reason is probably the tradition of English
anti-intellectualism (see chapter 5), , which means both
that it is often difficult to persuade pupils, especially
boys, to be interested in learning (Going back to Poland)
and also that teachers in Britain have, in comparison with
other European countries, rather low status.
Unfortunately, this status can sometimes become even
worse precisely because of the general perception of
poor educational standards. People want someone to
blame for this, so they blame the teachers. This means
teachers have to spend a lot of time being inspected and
filling in forms to prove they are doing a proper jo making
the job seem even less attractive. The government in this
centu has tried to alleviate the situation by advertising
campaigns and other initiatives (such as national awards
for excellence in teaching, known as the teaching
'Oscars").
The other response of British governments to the
perceived deficiencies in quality of education has been to
revise (sometimes, it seems, almost constantly) the
national curriculum. This is the body c documents which
specifies what children in state schools are suppose to
learn at each stage in their school careers.
But the interesting thing about education debates in
Britain is that they are not only or even mainly about
quality. Another aspect that is the subject of constant
worry is social justice. Perhaps because of the elitist
history of schooling in Britain and its social effects (see
previous section), or perhaps just because of the
importance they attack to fairness, the British are forever
worrying about equal opportunitie in education. British
governments and educational institutions are obsessed
with the knowledge that the majority of children who do
well in education are from middle-class, comparatively
wealthy background.
It was for this reason that during the 1970s, most areas
of the countr scrapped the system in which children were
separated at the age of 11 into those who went either to
a grammar school, where they were taugl academic
subjects to prepare them for university, the professions
or managerial jobs, or to a secondary modern school,
where the lessons ha a more practical and technical bias.
It was noticed that the children who went to grammar
schools were almost all from middle-class families; those
who went to secondary moderns tended to be seen as
'failures', so the system seemed to reinforce class
distinctions. Instead, from this time, most eleven-year-
olds have all gone on to the same local school. These
schools are known as comprehensive schools.
However, the fact remains that most of the teenagers
who get the best exam results, and who therefore
progress to university, are those from relatively
advantaged backgrounds and vice versa. In recent
decades, a university education has become much more
important than it used to be. At the same time, the gap
between high earners and low earners has become wider
than it used to be (see chapter 15). For both these
reasons, equality of educational opportunity is more
important than it used to be. Various schemes are being
tried to correct this imbalance. Most notably, universities
are now encouraged to accept students with relatively
poor exam results if they come from a disadvantaged
background). In some poorer areas, children are even
offered, with government approval, cash incentives to
pass their exams.
However, it is almost impossible to provide real equality.
Inevitably, the children of parents who care about
education the most, especially if they have money, tend
to get what they want for them. In some cases, this
means moving house to make sure they can get their
child into a school which gets good exam results (since
children must attend a school in the local area). In other
cases, if they feel that pupils from good schools are being
discriminated against, it even means making sure your
child gets into a school with bad exam results - and then
hiring private tuition for them!
The only way in which such inequalities could be
significantly reduced would be to ban all independent
education and introduce lotteries for allocating places in
secondary schools. In fact, this second possibility has
already been tried (in modified form) in some areas.
However, such measures conflict with another principle
which is highly valued in Britain, and is the third subject
around which there is debate. This is freedom of choice.
It is this principle, plus a belief that it would improve the
quality of education in schools generally that has led to
the publication of 'league tables of school exam results.
This has had the unfortunate effect of making it clear to
ambitious parents which are the more desirable schools.
(To some extent it has even led to the unofficial re-
establishment of the two-tier system which was
abandoned in the 1970s. Comprehensive schools are
supposed to be all equal, but some are better than
others.)
But the belief in freedom of choice involves much more
than which school a child goes to. It also implies a limit to
what central government can impose generally. The
British dislike of uniformity is one reason why Britain's
schools got a national curriculum so much later than
other European countries. It was not until the end of the
nineteenth century that it was fully operative. And since
then, complaints that it was too rigid and dictatorial have
resulted in modifications which have reduced the
number of its compulsory elements (Languages
anyone?).
Moreover, it should be noted that the national
curriculum has never specified exactly what must be
taught on a day-to-day basis or prescribed particular
teaching materials. A school can work towards the
objectives of the national curriculum in any way it likes.
Nor does central government dictate the exact hours of
the school day or the exact dates of holidays. It does not
manage a school's finances either - it just decides how
much money to give it. It does not set or supervise the
marking of the exams which older teenagers do (see
'public exams' below). In general, as many details as
possible are left u to the individual institution or the Local
Education Authority (LEA - a branch of local government).
(This was true even of the decision to scrap the pre-
1970s system mentioned above. Indeed, a very few areas
still have grammar schools.)
One of the reasons for this 'grass-roots' pattern is that
the system has been influenced by the public-school
tradition that a school is its own community. Most
schools develop, to some degree at least, a sense of
distinctiveness. Many, for example, have their own
uniforms for pupils. Many have associations of former
pupils, especially those outside the state system. It is
considered desirable (even necessary) for every school to
have its own school hall, big enough to accommodate
every pupil, for daily assemblies and other occasional
ceremonies. Universities, although partly financed by the
government, have even more autonomy.
Style Traditionally, education in Britain gave learning for
its own sake, rather than for any particular practical
purpose, a comparatively high value. In comparison with
most other countries, untries, a a relatively high
proportion of the emphasis was on the quality of person
that education produced (as opposed to the quality of
abilities that it produced). Concerns about the practical
utility of education have resulted in the virtual
disappearance of this attitude in the last 50 years.
However, some significant reflexes remain. For example,
much of the public debate about educational policy still
focuses on how schools can help their charges become
good members of society. The national curriculum
includes provision for the teaching of "citizenship' and of
various other personal matters such as 'sex and
relationships education'.
It also prescribes 'physical education'. Indeed, British
schools and universities have tended to give a high
priority to sport. The idea is that it helps to develop the
'complete' person. The notion of the school as a
"community can strengthen this emphasis. Sporting
success enhances the reputation of an institution. Until
the last quarter of the twentieth century, certain sports
at some universities (especially Oxford and Cambridge)
and medical schools were played to an international
standard and people with poor academic records were
sometimes accepted as students because of their
sporting prowess (although, unlike in the USA, this
practice was always unofficial).
Another reflex is that the approach to study tends to give
priority to developing understanding and sophistication
of approach over the accumulation of factual knowledge.
This is why British young people do not appear to have to
work so hard as their fellows in other European
countries. Primary schoolchildren do not normally have
formal homework to do and university students have
fewer hours of programmed attendance than students in
mainland Europe do, although on the other hand, they
receive greater personal guidance with their work.
School life
Britain has been comparatively slow to organize nursery
(i.e. pre-primary) education. But at the time of writing all
children are guaranteed a free, part-time early education
place (up to 12.5 hours per week) for up to two years
before reaching compulsory school age, which is the age
of 5, and the government has plans for all primary
schools to be open from 8 am. till 6 p.m., throughout the
year, even for children as young as two months. (The idea
is not to keep them in the classroom all this time. Rather,
it is that schools become the hub of local communities,
offering not only conventional education but also
breakfast provision, childminding facilities, activity clubs
and even health services for parents.)
SEven at present, the total number of hours in a year
which children spend at school is longer than in other
European countries. It is not that the typical school day is
especially long. It starts around 9 a.m. and finishes
between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m., or a bit later for older
children. It includes a lunch break which usually lasts
about an hour and a quarter, where nearly half of all
children have lunch provided by the school (Parents pay
for this, except for those who are rated poor enough for
it to be free. Other children either go home for lunch or
bring sandwiches.) On the other hand, it is a full five-day
week (there is no half day) and holiday periods are short
(The school year).
Almost all schools are either primary or secondary only,
the latter being generally larger. Methods of teaching
vary, but there is most common a balance between
formal lessons with the teacher at the front of the
classroom, and activities in which children work in small
groups round a table with the teacher supervising. In
primary schools, the children are mostly taught by a class
teacher who teaches all subjects, often wit the help of a
teaching assistant. At the ages of seven and eleven,
children have to take national tests in English,
mathematics and science. In secondary education, pupils
get different teachers for different subject and regular
homework.
The older children get, the more likely they are to be
separated into groups according to their perceived
abilities, sometimes for particular subjects only,
sometimes across all subjects. But some schools do not
practice such 'streaming' and instead teach all subjects to
'mixed ability classes. The rights and wrongs of this
practice is one of the matters about which there has
been heated debate for several decades, as it relates to
the social-justice and quality issues.
Public exams
At the end of their compulsory schooling, schoolchildren
take exams. Although some of these involve knowledge
and skills specified by the national curriculum, they are in
principle separate from the school style. They are
organized neither by schools nor by the government.
That is why they are called 'public'. (There is no unified
school-leaving exam or a school-leaving certificate.)
There is nothing to stop a 65 year-old doing a few of
them for fun. In practice, of course, the vast majority of
people who do these exams are school pupils, but
formally it is individual people who enter for these
exams, not pupils in a particular year of school.
The exams are set and marked by largely independent
examining boards. There are several of these. Each board
publishes its own separate syllabus for each different
subject (History? But which history?). Some boards offer
a vast range of subjects. Everywhere except Scotland
(which has its own single board), each school or LEA
decides which board's exams its pupils take. Some
schools even enter their pupils for the exams of one
board in some subjects and another board in other
subjects. In practice, nearly all pupils do exams in English
language, maths and a science subject. Many take exams
in several additional subjects, sometimes as many as
seven more.
The assessment of each examinee's performance in each
subject is usually a combination of coursework
assignments and formal, sit-down exams. Coursework
has formed a large component of the total mark in many
subjects in the last two decades. But the present trend is
towards a return to more conventional exams (The
trouble with the internet).
Education beyond sixteen
At the age of 16, people are free to leave school if they
want to. With Britain's modern enthusiasm for continuing
education, far fewer 16-year-olds go straight out and look
for a job than did previously. About a third of them still
take this option, but even they take part in training
schemes which involve on-the-job training, sometimes
combined with part-time college courses. The rest remain
in full-time education. About half of them leave their
school, either because it does not have a sixth form (The
sixth form) or because it does not teach the desired
subjects, and go to a sixth-form college, or College of
Further Education. An increasing number do vocational
training courses for particular jobs and careers. Recent
governments have been keen to increase the availability
of this type of course and its prestige (which used to be
comparatively low). In the era of 'lifelong learning' even
older adults participate in such courses. At the time of
writing, the proportion of adults over 25 in some kind of
education or training is higher than the European average
(exceeded only by the Nordic countries).
For those who stay in education and study conventional
academic subjects, there is more specialization than
there is in most other countries. Typically, a pupil spends
a whole two years studying just three or four subjects,
usually related ones, in preparation for taking A-level
exams, though this is something else which might change
in the near future (Academic exams and qualifications).
The independence of Britain's educational institutions is
most noticeable in universities. They make their own
choices of who to accept for their courses. There is no
right of entry to university for anybody. Universities
normally select students on the basis of A-level results
and a few conduct interviews. Students with better exam.
grades are more likely to be accepted. But in principle
there is nothing to stop a university accepting a student
who has no A-levels at all and conversely, a student with
top grades in several A-levels is not guaranteed a place.
The availability of higher education increased greatly in
the last second half of the twentieth century (The growth
of higher education), but finding a university place is still
not easy. The numbers who can be accepted on each
course are limited.
Because of this limitation, students at university get a
relatively high degree of personal supervision. As a result,
the vast majority of university students complete their
studies and in a very short time too. In England, Wales,
and Northern Ireland, only modern languages and certain
vocational studies take more than three years. (In
Scotland, four years is the norm for most subjects.)
Indeed, it is only in exceptional circumstances that
students are allowed to 'retake years repeatedly.
Traditionally, another reason for the low drop-out rate is
that students typically live 'on campus', (or, in Oxford and
Cambridge 'in college') or in rooms nearby, and are thus
surrounded by a university atmosphere.
However, the expansion of higher education during the
1990s caused this characteristic, and other traditional
features, to become far less typical. Until this expansion,
'full time' really meant full time. Many students got jobs
in the holidays, but were forbidden to take any kind of
employment during term-time. But that was in the days
when students got a grant to cover their term-time
expenses. Because of the expansion, the grant has long
since disappeared for all but the poorest. And on top of
that there are now (unlike before) tuition fees to pay.
Despite the existence of a student loan scheme, the
result is that universities can no longer insist their
students don't take term- time jobs and about half of the
country's students do so. Indeed, so important is the
income from these jobs that their availability in the area
is an important consideration for many prospective
students in choosing a university.
There is evidence that students' studies are suffering as a
result of th imperative to earn money. There is an irony
here. The main thrust of government policy is to open up
higher education to the poorer classes. But it is, of
course, the students from poorer backgrounds w suffer
the most in this way. It is for the same reason-money
that: increasing number of students now live at home.
Public means private!
Terminology about the school system in Britain can be
confusing. Schools funded by the government, either
directly or via local education authorities, are called state
schools and education provided in this way is known as
state education. This distinguishes it from private
education, which comprises independent schools. The
confusing bit is that some independent schools (a varying
number, because the term is not exact) are known as
public schools.
The possibility of confusion is especially great because in
America schools organized by the government are called
'public schools' and the education provided by the
government is called the 'public school system. In Britain
today, about eight per cent of children are educated
outside the state system.

Help from abroad

What do you do if you're the head of a large school in
Britain? Supervise the teaching? Organize the
curriculum? Make sure that good order is preserved in
the school? Well, yes, that's what you do some of the
time. But these days you also spend a lot of your time
flying around the world desperately trying to find
teachers to come and teach in your school.
Such is the shortage of teachers in Britain that thousands
of foreign teachers are recruited every year. The teachers
they get are often appalled at the behaviour of pupils in
British schools and they find it very hard, but they don't
mind too much because it's only temporary and it's good
experience. In any case, they are made to feel special-the
education authorities that employ them are so grateful
they lay on special receptions for them and arrange for
visa requirements to be relaxed.
Sometimes, this practice creates bad feeling between the
government of Britain and these other countries, who
accuse the British of exporting their education crisis.

The public school system

Historically, stereotypical public schools:
are for boys only, from the age of 13 onwards, most of
whom attended a private 'prep' (preparatory) school
beforehand
take fee-paying pupils (and some scholarship pupils who
have won a place in a competitive entrance exam and
whose parents do not pay)
are boarding schools (the boys live there during term-
time)
are divided into 'houses', each 'house' being managed by
a "housemaster”
make some of the senior boys 'prefects, which means
that they have authority over the other boys and have
their own servants (called 'fags'), who are appointed
from amongst the youngest boys
place great emphasis on team sports
enforce their rules with the use of physical punishment
are not at all luxurious or comfortable
However, this traditional image no longer fits the facts.
These days, there is not a single public school in the
country in which all of the above features apply, and
same of them do not apply anywhere. There have been a
fairly large number of girls' public schools for the last
hundred years, and by now most public schools are
mixed sex. Many schools admit day pupils as well as
boarders, and some are day schools only; prefects no
longer have so much power or have been abolished;
fagging has disappeared and so has physical punishment;
there is less emphasis on team sport and more on
academic achievement; life for the pupils is more
physically comfortable than it used to be.
Among the most famous public schools are Eton, Harrow,
Rugby, and Winchester.

The three Rs
Basic literacy and numeracy is informally known in
Britain as 'the three Rs'. These are Reading, writing, and
aRithmetic.
The politicians' children
The issue of equal opportunity is often highlighted when
the British media report a story about where a prominent
government politician is sending his or her children to
school. If, as is frequently the case, these children are
found to be attending independent schools, there are
loud cries of derision and protest. Interestingly, though,
the protests rarely focus on the question of inequality.
Indeed, they are usually careful to insist that X has the
right to send his or her children wherever he or she likes.
Instead, they focus on the quality issue and the case is
held up as evidence that the government has no faith in
its own education system.

School uniforms
Ever since schools made their appearance in Britain, it
has been customary for pupils to wear school uniforms.
When few children went to any kind of school, uniforms
were a sign of status. It proclaimed the child's attendance
and it showed that the parents could afford to buy it.
When schooling became universal, most schools took this
lead and insisted on their pupils wearing uniform. It was
a mark of aspiration.
During the sixties and seventies, more and more schools
abandoned uniforms; they were regarded as a burden on
the parents' finances and it was believed that they stifled
creativity and individualism.
For the last 20 years, however, the pendulum has been
swinging the other way. These days, the vast majority of
parents are in favour of uniforms. Ironically, this is for the
same reason that made them want to get rid of them
previously - money. These days, buying a uniform is likely
to be less expensive than buying their children the
fashionable clothes which they otherwise demand.
There is still a large minority of schools in Britain which
do not prescribe a uniform. But they often come under
pressure from government advisers, who believe
uniforms are symbols of belonging and lead to an
improvement in academic performance.

Languages anyone?
For years now, educationalists, economists and official
reports have been bemoaning the poor state of
language-learning in British schools and the low level of
foreign language ability in general among the British
population. The British workforce, say these people, is in
danger of being left behind in an increasingly
internationalized job-market. And yet, when the national
curriculum was slimmed down in the early years of this
century, 'modern foreign languages' was one of the
subjects that was left out. English children are the only
pupils in Europe who are allowed to drop foreign
languages completely from their studies after the age of
14. Fewer than ten per cent learn a foreign language
beyond the age of 16. Rather than trying to educate the
many in foreign languages, the present policy is to train a
very small section of the population as language
specialists.
In Wales, the situation is different. The provision for a
'foreign language' is the same as in England but all pupils
study both English and Welsh until the age of 16.

Summerhill and discipline

There may be another reason why it is so hard to find
people to teach in Britain's schools. It is a common belief
that the pupils are very badly behaved. Again, this is a
matter of personal opinion. But the experience of the
famous independent school Summerhill is perhaps
indicative. When it was founded in 1923 by the
educationalist, A. S. Neill, his vision was for a school
where children could learn that adults were not people
to be frightened of, where they policed themselves and
where they learnt because they wanted to, not because
they were forced to. Neill once famously said he would
rather turn a child into a happy street- sweeper than a
successful but miserable professional. Accordingly, the
tradition at Summerhill is that the children themselves
set and police the rules and lessons are not compulsory.
In the school's heyday in the sixties, it was an icon of the
hippy movement, with stories of pupils reciting
Shakespeare to cows and going communal nude bathing.
How times change! This noble idea of a libertarian
education was all very well when the pupils had already
learnt at least the concepts of rules and discipline from
their parents and of co-operation from their brothers and
sisters. But now children tend to come from much
smaller families, so that these concepts are less
necessary. The present head of Summerhill, who is Neill's
daughter and in theory just as committed to his ideals,
says that they now get children coming along who are so
selfish, so badly behaved, such (in her own words) 'spoilt
brats', that they have to be taught that living in a
community means you cannot always do exactly what
you want. Ironically, therefore, Summerhill has found
itself in the position of championing a sense of discipline
and order.

Learning for its own sake

One effect of the traditional British emphasis on
academic learning as opposed to practical training can be
seen in the way that people gain qualifications for certain
professions. In many cases, this has not traditionally been
done within universities. Instead, people go to specialized
institutions which are separate from any university. You
can study architecture at university, but most architects
have learnt their profession at a separate School of
Architecture; you can study law at university but this
alone does not qualify you to be a lawyer (see chapter
11); you cannot get a teacher's qualification by doing an
ordinary university course - most teachers get theirs at a
teacher training college. Until recently, schools were not
usually involved in helping people to get qualifications for
skilled manual jobs such as bricklaying or carpentry or
machine-operating.

The trouble with the internet

In the 1980s, universities and post-16 education
generally started moving away from timed, sit-down
exams as a method of assessment and started awarding
some of the total mark for take-home assignments. It was
thought that deciding 100% of a mark by sit-down exam
put unnecessary stress on many students and unfairly
disadvantaged those who were less comfortable working
under such conditions. Moreover, take- home pieces of
work could be longer and therefore potentially more
sophisticated. By the start of this century, in almost all
subjects, a large proportion of the mark - and sometimes
100% of it-for a particular qualification was awarded for
take-home work.
But the trend is now back towards old-fashioned exams.
The problem is that today's students have an opportunity
for cheating unavailable to their predecessors-the
internet, making it easy for them to download relevant
writing and pretend it is their own. In response,
educational institutions now require assignments to be
submitted electronically, so that any plagiarism can be
detected.
But the problem goes further than that. In the years
around the turn of the century, thousands of on- line
'essay companies' sprung up. They are not illegal. They
say they simply provide information to clients in the
requested form but that what the client does with this
information is not their business. But of course what the
client does is present this work as their own. This
'information' is not available on the web; it is sent to
clients in email attachments and so cannot easily be
detected. In 2006, it was reported that the largest of
these companies had supplied 15,000 people with
bespoke essays in the previous three years and that the
annual turnover of this new 'service industry' was about
£200 million.

The school year

Schools usually divide their year into
three ‘terms’, starting at the beginning
of September. In addition, schools have
a ‘half-term’ (half-term holiday) lasting a
few days or a week in the middle of
each term.
History? But which history?
The exam boards in Britain are not quite as independent
as they used to be. There is now a Qualifications and
Curriculum Authority (QCA) which oversees them. It was
due to pressure from the QCA that the examining boards
changed their A-level history syllabuses in 2008. It was
decided that these syllabuses needed a larger British
component.
This was an interesting development. In the early
twentieth century, most history in British schools
consisted of learning, in minute detail, about the glories
of the British empire. Then, in the second half of the
century, a reaction set in, and by the end of the century,
Britain was more or less ignored. Instead, the focus was
on twentieth century dictatorships such as those of Hitler
and Stalin. In one A-level syllabus, it was even possible
for students to spend 80% of their time on German
history in the first half of the twentieth century. The
feeling was that the reaction had gone too far.
And there was another reason for this renewed British
emphasis. The reality of multicultural Britain means that
a very large number of children cannot rely on learning
from their parents about the culture and history of the
country in which they were born and are being brought
up. It is widely felt that, in order to foster a sense of
Britishness, they need to be taught it in school. At the
same time, historians and educators have warned against
a return to the bad old days of empire glorification.

The sixth form

The word 'form' was the usual word to describe a class
of pupils in public schools. It was taken over by some
state schools, although many state schools simply used
the word 'class'. Since the introduction of the national
curriculum and the streamlining of different kinds of
educational provision, it has become common to refer
simply to 'years'. However, 'form' has been universally
retained in the phrase 'sixth form', which refers to those
pupils who are studying beyond the age of sixteen.

UCAS If you want to study full time for a first degree at a

British university, you do not apply directly to the
university. Instead, you apply through the University
Central Admissions Service (UCAS). UCAS does not make
any decisions about your application. It just acts as a
messenger between you and the universities.
The Open University
This is one development in education in which Britain can
claim to have led the world. It was started in 1969. It
allows people who do not have the opportunity to be
students in the normal way by attending a university to
study for a degree through (what has now become
known as) distance education. When it started, its
courses were taught through television, radio and
specially written coursebooks. These days, of course, it
uses the internet instead. Students work with tutors, to
whom they send their written work and with whom they
then discuss it. In the summer, they have to attend short
residential courses of about a week.

Academic exams and qualifications

GCSE General Certificate of Secondary Education. The
exams taken by most 15 to 16 year olds in England,
Wales, and Northern Ireland. Marks are given for each
subject separately. The syllabuses and methods of
examination of the various examining boards differ.
However, there is a uniform system of marks, all being
graded from A to G. Grades A, B, and C are regarded as
'good' grades.
SCE Scottish Certificate of Education. The Scottish
equivalent of GCSE. These exams are set by the Scottish
Examinations Board. Grades are awarded in numbers, 1
being the best. A Levels Advanced Levels. Higher level
academic exams set by the same examining boards that
set GCSE exams. They are taken mostly by people around
the age of 18 who wish to go on to higher education. At
present, they are split into A1s and A2s. An A1 is worth
half an A2 (the full A-Level) and can stand as a
qualification by itself.
There is a certain amount of dissatisfaction with the A-
level system. Many head teachers are now seriously
thinking of throwing it out and adopting a foreign model -
specifically the baccalaureate. In fact, there are already
dozens of schools in Britain which prepare their students
for the International Baccalaureate. Many people are
now calling for a 'British Bacc’.
SCE 'Advanced Highers' The Scottish equivalent of A-
levels.
Degree A qualification from a university. (Other
qualifications obtained after secondary education are
usually called 'certificate' or 'diploma'.)
Bachelor's Degree The general name for a first degree,
most commonly a BA (Bachelor of Arts) or BSc (Bachelor
of Science). Students studying for a first degree are called
undergraduates. When they have been awarded a
degree, they are known as graduates. Most people get
honours degrees, awarded in different classes. These are:
Class I (known as 'a first'); Class II.I ('a 2.1' or 'an upper
second"); Class II.II ('a 2.2' or 'a lower second"); Class III
('a third') A student who is below one of these gets a pass
degree (i.e. not an honours degree).
Master's Degree The general name for a second
(postgraduate) degree, most commonly MA or MSc. At
Scottish universities, however, these titles are used for
first degrees.
Doctorate The highest academic qualification. This
usually (but not everywhere) carries the title PhD (Doctor
of Philosophy). The time taken to complete a doctorate
varies, but it is generally expected to involve three years
of more-or-less full-time study.

Types of university
There are no important official or legal distinctions
between the various universities in the country. But it is
possible to discern a few broad categories.
Oxbridge
This name denotes the universities of Oxford and
Cambridge, both founded in the medieval period. They
are federations of semi-independent colleges, each
college having its own staff, known as 'fellows'. Most
colleges have their own dining hall, library, and chapel
and contain enough accommodation for at least half of
their students. The fellows teach the college students,
either one-to-one or in very small groups (known as
'tutorials' in Oxford and 'supervisions' in Cambridge).
Oxbridge has the lowest student/staff ratio in Britain.
Lectures and laboratory work are organized at university
level. As well as the college libraries, there are the two
university libraries, both of which are legally entitled to a
free copy of every book published in Britain. Before 1970,
all Oxbridge colleges were single-sex (mostly for men).
Nearly all now admit both sexes.
The old Scottish universities
By 1600, Scotland boasted four universities. They were
Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and St. Andrews. The last
of these resembles Oxbridge in many ways, while the
other three are more like civic universities (see following
column) in that most of the students live at home or find
their own rooms in town. At all of them, the pattern of
study is closer to the Continental tradition than to the
English one - there is less specialization than at Oxbridge.
The early nineteenth-century English universities
Durham University was founded in 1832. Its collegiate
living arrangements are similar to Oxbridge, but
academic matters are organized at university level. The
University of London started in 1836 with just two
colleges. Many more have joined since, scattered widely
around the city, so that each college (most being non-
residential) is almost a separate university. The central
organization is responsible for little more than exams and
the awarding of degrees.
The older civic ('redbrick') universities
During the nineteenth century, various institutes of
higher education, usually with a technical bias, sprang up
in the new industrial towns and cities such as
Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds. Their buildings
were of local material, often brick, in contrast to the
stone of older universities (hence the name, 'redbrick').
They catered only for local people. At first, they prepared
students for London University degrees, but later they
were given the right to award their own degrees, and so
became universities themselves. In the mid twentieth
century, they started to accept students from all over the
country.
The campus universities These are purpose-built
institutions located in the countryside outside a nearby
town. Examples are East Anglia, Lancaster, Sussex, and
Warwick. They have accommodation for most of their
students on site and from their beginning, mostly in the
early 1960s, attracted students from all over the country.
(Many were known as centres of student protest in the
late 1960s and early 1970s.) They tend to place emphasis
on relatively 'new' academic disciplines such as social
sciences and to make greater use than other universities
of teaching in small groups, often known as 'seminars".
The newer civic universities
These were originally technical colleges set up by local
authorities in the first sixty years of this century. Their
upgrading to university status took place in two waves.
The first wave occurred in the mid 1960s, when ten of
them (e.g. Aston in Birmingham, Salford near
Manchester, and Strathclyde in Glasgow) were promoted
in this way. Then, in the early 1970s, another thirty
became 'polytechnics', which meant that, as well as
continuing with their former courses, they were allowed
to teach degree courses (the degrees being awarded by a
national body). In the early 1990s most of these (and also
some other colleges) became universities. Their most
notable feature is flexibility with regard to studying
arrangements, including 'sandwich' courses (i.e. studies
interrupted by periods of time outside education). They
are now all financed by central government.