I Answer the following questions.
1) What choices do pupils have at the age of sixteen?
2) If you wanted practical basis training, where would you expect to study in Britain?
3) Which examinations do you need to go to a British university?
4) How do the numbers who go on to higher education in Britain compare with other countries?
5) Which of these degrees is not specifically mentioned in the text: BSc, MA, Mphil, PhD? Which of them is a first degree?
6) What are the main differences between university course in Britain and in your own country?
7) How are college and university courses paid for in your own country?
8) How usual is it to go university in your country? Is it difficult to get in?
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Text 3. THE STORY OF BRITISH SCHOOLS
It might seem as if the educational system is comparatively simple. For largely historical reasons, however, it is complicated, inconsistent and highly varied. Most of the oldest schools, of which the most famous are Eton and Winchester, are today independent, fee-paying, public schools. Most of these established to create a body of literate people to fulfill the administrative, political, legal and religious requirements of the late Middle Ages. From the sixteenth century onwards, many ‘grammar’ schools were established, often with large grants of money from wealthy men, in order to provide a local educational facility.
From the 1870s it became the duty of local authorities to establish elementary schools, at the expense of the local community, and to compel attendance of all children up to the age of thirteen. By 1900 almost total attendance had been achieved. Each local authority, with its locally elected councilors, was responsible for the curriculum. Although a general consensus developed concerning the major part of the school curriculum, a strong feeling of local control continued and interference by central government was resented. A number of secondary schools were also established by local authorities, modeled on the public schools .
The 1944 Education Act introduced free compulsory secondary education. Almost all children attended one of two kinds of secondary school. The decision was made on the results obtained in the 11 plus examination, taken on leaving primary school About three quarters of pupils went to secondary modern schools where pupils were expected to obtain sufficient education for manual, skilled and clerical employment, but the academic expectations were modest. The remaining quarter, however, went to grammar schools. Some of these were old foundations, which now received a direct grant from central government, but the majorities were funded through the local authority. Grammar school pupils were expected to go on to university or some other form of higher education. A large number of the grammar or high schools were single sex. In addition there were, and continue to be, a number of voluntary state-supported primary and secondary schools, most of them under the management of the Church of England or the Roman Catholic Church, which usually own the school building.
By the 1960s there was increasing criticism of this streaming of ability, particularly by the political left. It was recognized that many children performed inconsistently, and that those who failed the 11 plus examination might well develop academically later, but through the secondary modern system were denied this opportunity. It seemed a great waste of human potential. In fact, a government report in 1968 produced evidence that an expectation of failure became increasingly fulfilled: secondary modern children aged fourteen were found to be doing significantly worse than they had been at the age of eight. The Labour government’s solution was to introduce a new type of school, the comprehensive, a combination of grammar and secondary modern under one roof, so that all the children could be continually assessed and given appropriate teaching. Between 1965 end 1980 almost all the old grammar and secondary modern schools were replaced, mainly by co-educational comprehensives. The measure caused much argument for two reasons. Many local authorities did not wish to lose the excellence of their grammar schools, and many resented the interference in education, which was still considered a local responsibility. However, despite the pressure to change school structures, each school, in consultation with the local authority, remained in control of its curriculum. In practice the result of the reform was very mixed: the best comprehensives aimed at grammar school academic standards, while the worst sank to secondary modern ones.
One unforeseen but damaging result was the refusal of many grammar schools to join the comprehensive experiment. Of the 174 old direct grant grammar schools, 119 decided to leave the state rather than become comprehensive, and duly become independent fee-paying establishments. This had two effects. The grammar schools had provided an opportunity for children from all social backgrounds to excel academically at the same level as those attending fee-paying independent public schools. The loss of these schools had a demoralizing effect on the comprehensive experiment, and damaged its chances of success, but led to a revival of independent school at a time when they seemed to be slowly shrinking. The comprehensive reform thus unintentionally reinforced educational elite which only the children of wealthier parents could hope to join.
The comprehensives became the standard form of secondary education (other than in one or two isolated areas, where grammar schools and secondary moderns survived). However except among the best comprehensive they lost the excellence of the old grammar schools.
Alongside the introduction of comprehensives there was a move away from traditional teaching and discipline towards what was called ‘progressive” education. This entailed a change from more formal teaching and factual learning to greater pupil participation and discussion, with greater emphasis on comprehension and less on the acquisition of knowledge. Not everyone approved. During the 1970s there was increasing criticism of the lack of discipline and of formal learning, and a demand to return to old-fashioned methods.
During the 1960 s and 1970s there was also greater emphasis on education and training than ever before, with many colleges of further education established to provide technical or vocational training. However, British education remained too academic for the less able, and technical studies have remained weak, with the result that a large number of less able pupils leave school without any skills at all. By 1988 nine out of ten West German employees had vocational training qualifications based on a three-year apprentice type course. In Britain only one in ten came into the same category.
The expansion of education led to increased expenditure. The proportion of the gross national product devoted to education doubled, from 3.2 per cent in 1954, to 6.5 per cent by 1970, though during the 1980s this figure fell back to about 5 per cent. These higher levels of spending did not lead to fulfilled expectations. Perhaps the most serious failures were the continued high dropout rate at the age of sixteen and low level of achievement in mathematics and science among school –leavers. By the mid 1980s, while over 80 per cent of pupils in West Germany and the United States, and over 90 per cent in Japan, stayed on till the age of eighteen, barely on third of British pupils did so. Surveys of the adult population revealed that half the population could not do simple mathematics or read a railway timetable correctly, and that 16-pen cent could not locate Britain on a map of the world. Among ten year-oil primary pupils in seventeen countries, English children were second worst in science. The worst Japanese school was better in primary science than the best 60-pen cent of English schools. Although A level science pupils in England are among the best internationally, they are a small group. The damaging fact is the broad ignorance of British children, particularly in science and technology. One reason is that British children, along with American children, spend more time watching television, and there is an established negative association between this and achievement in science and mathematics.