Differences in the Organization of Education in Britain and America

Differences in the organization of education in Britain and America led to different terms. One crucial word, school, is used in overlap­ping but different ways. A place of education for young children is a school in both varieties. But a public school in Britain is in fact a ‘private’ school; it is a fee-paying school not controlled by the lo­cal education authority. The free local authority school in America is a public school. The American grade school has a BE near-equiva­lent of elementary school. But whereas an American can say: ‘Stan­ford is a pretty good school,’ the word school in BE is never used to refer to a university or other college of higher education. An Amer­ican high school student graduates; a British secondary school pupil (never student) leaves school. To graduate is possible only from a university, polytechnic or college of education in British usage; grad­uating entails taking a degree. British universities have 3 terms; American universities have 2 semesters (or in some recent cases, 4 quarters). A British university student takes 3 years, in the typical case, to get his degree; these are known as the first, second and final years. The American university student typically takes 4 years, known as freshman, sophomore, junior and senior years. While he is study­ing, the American majors in a particular subject, but also takes electives; the British student usually takes main and subsidiary subjects. The British term honours degree signifies that the student specializ­es in one main subject, perhaps with one subsidiary. The American student earns credits for successfully completing a number of self-contained courses of study, the credits eventually reaching the total needed for him to receive a degree. There is no counterpart to the credit system in British high education at present.

The British student who has already taken a first degree (usually a B.A. or B.Sc. except Scottish universities) is a post-graduate; theAmerican equivalent is a graduate. In American universities those who teach are known as the faculty; in Britain they are the staff, possibly dignified as the academic staff.

BE has no equivalent to AE co-ed for a girl student, nor is there any BE equivalent of the American sorority or fraternity, i.e. nation­wide university clubs or associations with restricted membership.

II. Look through the text again, find unknown words and write down them into your vocabulary.

III. Put 10 questions to the text.

IV. Find all irregular verbs in the text, give 3 forms and translate them.

TEXT 15

I. Read the text and define the main idea of it.

II. Think of the title to the text.

Education today is perhaps more important than at any previous time in our history. It helps young people to meet challenges of life and to see the world with greater understanding. Today we depend on science and technology, so everybody should know about it and its contribution to society, understand its potential and limitations. This course is for large number of students of natural sciences to whom English will be a vital part of their scientific life. English is the lan­guage of international scientific communication; it is the language of all scientific conferences, of major scientific journals and informal discussions in hallways of symposia and congresses of sci­entists all over the world.

So, the focus of education is on the learner and the goal is to help each student to get as much knowledge as possible, to become a creative thinker, to develop a good self-image when he takes his place in the working world. Studies should help students to discover that dealing with scientific issues is fun, interesting and important to their lives.

The objective of a study programme is to provide good knowledge in science and in a spe­cial field of student's interest. Students learn to carry out and interpret investigations, and acquire teaching and technical skills in sciences.

The faculty develops a curriculum that produces a well-rounded student with good training in a chosen area of research.

Computer scientists trained at faculties of cybernetics are wanted at scientific laboratories, schools and universities, industrial facilities, banks and commer­cial companies.

At higher schools basic material is presented in the form of lectures supplemented by class discussions, seminars and laboratory exercises. Students work in laboratories to learn various ex­perimental techniques and to become familiarised with instrumentation and other faculty facilities.

Besides studies and research work students can take part in numerous social activities offered by their department or university. They attend interesting meetings, lectures, films, exhibitions; join various sports and art clubs or societies.

The department actively helps its students to find their professional positions, placing them in jobs for which they are well prepared and in which they can prosper. Graduates of the depart­ments of natural sciences can take industrial posts or choose academic career both in teaching and research fields.

III. Write down new words into your vocabulary.

IV. Make up a brief summary of the text.

V. Make up word-combinations:

1. contribution a) knowledge

2. international b) challenges

3. to provide c) communication

4. study d) to society

5. to meet e) programme

TEXT 16

I. Read this text and translate it into Ukrainian.

Education in Scotland

Scotland has a tradition of educational excellence. Its schools and universities are broad-based and egalitarian, and are highly valued by the Scottish people. The quality of education in the country attracts an ever-growing number of students and researchers from many other parts of the world.

A major factor in the success of the country's industrial and cultural sectors has been Scotland's educational system. The national school system goes back to the sixteenth century, when elementary schools were established in every parish and grammar schools in every major town in Scotland.

Today the state school system is funded through the Scottish Executive and the lo­cal authorities in Scotland. Education is compulsory between the ages of 5 and 16, and although the pre-school (nursery) stage for children aged between 2 and 5 is not compulsory, the Scottish Executive has set a target of creating a nursery place for every 3-year-old child in the country whose parents want it. By August 2011, some 85 per cent of 3-year-olds and 96 per cent of 4-year-olds were in nursery education.

Primary education is provided for all children between the ages of 5 and 11 or 12, and pupils then move on to secondary schools, which teach children up to the age of 18. The standard of teaching is particularly high and only graduates can become teachers.

Following their school careers, students with appropriate qualifications can move to further or higher education at one of Scotland's 13 universities, 6 specialist higher education institutions or 47 further education colleges. Numbers in further education have doubled in less than 10 years and almost half of young people in Scotland now choose to embark on a further education course.

II. Make up a vocabulary of new words.

III. Put questions to the text.

IV. Be ready to speak on the topic.

V. Complete this table with the missing verb forms.

Infinitive	Past Simple	Past Participle	Translation
	had
		gone
be
	grew
		set
choose
	became
		left
teach
		known
	began
find
		taken
	ran
get

TEXT 17

I. Read the text and determine the subtitles of it.

Higher Education in the USA

Higher education in the US began when in 1636, a short time after the first colonists came to the territory now called Massachusetts, they founded a college, later to become the famous Harvard University. It is the oldest university in the country, named in honour of John Har­vard who left his library and half property. The College of William and Mary founded in 1693 was the second insti­tution of higher learning established in the colonies. These colonial colleges which later became universities were found­ed to train men for services in the church and civil state. Special emphasis was laid on classical education and only those who knew Latin and Greek were considered educat­ed. By 1776 four more institutions had been opened: Yale University founded in Connecticut in 1701, Princeton University (1746), Washington and Lee University (1749), University of Pennsylvania (1740).

In practically every respect American colleges in those days tried to duplicate the colleges of ancient universities of England. They were residential colleges in the English fashion, but unlike Oxford and Cambridge they were not self-governing.

The American Revolution brought a lot of changes. The independence of the states followed by the creation of the federal government raised new questions about what American higher education should be. The first state uni­versities were founded, though their flowering did not come until after the Civil War, a century later. The technolog­ical needs of agriculture and business stimulated the im­provement of the early nineteen-century universities. Apart from these, agricultural and engineering colleges came into existence to meet the practical needs of industry and agri­culture.

Gradually universities, private or public, became the dominant and most influential structure of higher educa­tion, the position they still hold. Many of the oldest and best known liberal arts colleges, such as Yale, Columbia and Harvard, became universities during this period.

Eventually a peculiarly American structure unlike any other existing university system was produced. In the 1870s graduate school was introduced in the American universi­ty. It was placed structurally on the top of what came to be known as undergraduate school devoted to general edu­cation. Along with this, the practice of majoring in a specific subject became common. By the end of the centu­ry, however, it was beginning to become clear that ‘open curriculum’, allowing the undergraduate to choose most of the courses, had its problems. Efforts were made to recon­stitute in some parts a systematic curriculum in which the courses were strictly prescribed. By 1938 roughly one third of the college courses at Columbia was prescribed. This balance is now typical for many undergraduate programs.