The system of education in great britain

T
HE SYSTEM OF EDUCATION IN 
G
REAT 
B
RITAIN
6 
Over 90 per cent of students on the first degree and comparable advanced 
courses receive awards covering tuition fees and maintenance. Parents also contrib-
ute, the amount depending in their income. In addition students are eligible for an in-
terest-free loan. There some 79 universities; they enjoy complete academic freedom. 
They appoint their own staff and decide what and how to teach. The tradition of ex-
cellence dates back to the 12
th
and 13
th
centuries, when Oxford and Cambridge Uni-
versities were founded. Four Scottish universities were established in the 14
th
and 
15
th
centuries, while the rest of the universities were set up in the last 200 years. First 
degree courses usually last three or four years. 
The past 20 years of UK higher education have witnessed fundamental shifts in 
forms of evaluation. New forms have arisen, displaying older forms. Those shifts can 
be understood in the following way: 
(a) Internal and dialogical: the older universities would claim that this form of 
evaluation was indeed characteristic of their approach to evaluation. Its deep 
purpose is to maintain teaching activities as private transactions. 
(b) Instrumental and bureaucratic: the newer universities had developed their 
own internal course review systems. These systems take different forms, fo-
cusing on departments or individual courses, but are internal forms of ac-
countability. 
The Open University is non-residential and offers degrees and other courses for 
adult students of all ages in Britain and other parts of Europe. Its teaching method is 
a combination of printed texts, correspondence tuition, television and radio broad-
casts, audio and video cassettes and residential schools. It relies on distant-learning. 
There are also local study centres. No formal qualifications are required to register 
for the most courses, but the standards of Open University are as high as at other 
universities. In 1991, 75,000 people registered for its degree courses. 
Since 1967 a major contribution to post-school education has been made a 
number of polytechnics, which enjoyed close links with commerce and industry. As 
the result of recent legislation, nearly all polytechnics have become universities and 
award their own degrees from 1993. England’s and Wales’s 34 polytechnics tend to 
be more vocationally-oriented than universities, providing degree and sub-degree 
vocational courses as well as traditional academic degree courses. They have close 
links with business and many students have jobs and attend part-time. 
Many non-advanced courses are provided in further education colleges for peo-
ple aged over 16. Much of this is work-related and vocational. Students attend part 
time, either by day release or block release from employment or during the evenings. 
Employers are often involved in designing courses. The company benefits too, as 
young people gain knowledge to meet the requirements of the future work. In gen-
eral, the Government is keen to establish more vocational qualifications at secondary 
schools and colleges in order to ensure that there is greater orientation towards skills 
which will help to equip 14 to 18 year olds for working life. 
Teacher training is a preparation for working with the most valuable resources 
the country has. Non-graduates normally take a four-year Bachelor of Education 
(BEd) degree, while those are already graduates undertake a one-year Postgraduate 

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