II. Write down new words into your vocabulary.

III. Make up a plan of the text in the form of questions.

IV. Discuss the content of the text in the form of a dialogue.

TEXT 21

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

Work or Studies

Accord­ing to research the most cash-strapped university students are jeopardising their chances of exam success by combining their studies with long hours in low paid jobs.

Half of those surveyed said they com­bined paid work with their studies dur­ing term-time and half focused solely on their academic work. Students who worked admitted they spent less time on academic work because of the demands of regular term-time jobs – typically in bars, pubs, cafes and shops – and often skipped lectures and handed work in late. For those working 15 hours a week the odds of obtaining a first class degree were cut by more than a third.

The results of the three-year study confirm the phenomenon of students who are forced into regular employment to pay for basics such as food and rent. It also shows that students from the poorest homes and ethnic minority backgrounds most likely to be working long hours to help pay bills.

The study, by researchers at London South Bank University and the Open University, is the first to confirm that students forced to work as a result of financial hardship suffer in terms of aca­demic performance.

The research project was commis­sioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and the Umbrella group Universities (UK). Around 1,500 undergraduates attending seven universities across the UK completed the survey in spring 2011.

Students tended to work in low-paid jobs and reported that their studies suf­fered as a direct result of their work. Many admitted missing lectures, producing poor quality assignments and having difficulty accessing libraries and computer facili­ties.

More than 80% said they spent less time studying because of their term-time jobs and nearly three-quarters spent less time preparing coursework. Many stu­dents believed that term-time working damaged academic performance – wor­ries that were well-founded. The more students worked during term-time, the lower their average end-of-year marks or final degree results.

Three-quarters of students had con­cerns about debts. Of those forced to work, more than a third (37%) spent most of their earnings on basics such as food and rent. Less than two students in every 10 spent most of their earnings on social life and entertainment.

II. Write down new words into your vocabulary.

III. Ask questions to the content of the text and give short answers.

IV. Make up a brief summary of the text.

V. Match each English word in the left column with its Ukrainian equivalent in the right column:

1. debt a) заробіток

2. research b) студент

3. term-time c) якість

4. to obtain d) борг

5. earnings e) розвага

6. undergraduate f) отримувати

7. hardship g) семестр (у коледжі, університеті)

8. quality h) труднощі; нужда

9. entertainment i) відвідувати

10. to attend j) дослідження

TEXT 22

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

Shaping Campus Facilities

An institution's ability to respond to new trends directly affects its ability to compete in the academic arena and fulfill its mission. As a result, institutions are developing long-term strategic plans for resources including capital, people, tech­nology, information and, of particular importance, facilities.

Colleges and universities, like the pri­vate business sector, commonly have viewed their facilities as a necessary evil that is non-returning. However, funds deployed in institutional facilities, in fact, must be expected to produce a return by advancing the institution's mis­sion and competitive advantage.

But how can an institution make this happen? Institutions can produce a return from their facilities by strategically control­ling those costs that do not directly support their mission and productivity. At the same time, they must gain additional advantages from those costs that do. In other words, if an institution's real estate is directly adding value to its mission – advancing learning through technology and cabling infra­structure, meeting the new needs of users, creating innovative real-world learning environments – then that same real estate is systematically providing a return.

Given the trends facing higher educa­tion today, how can institutions design their facilities as strategic resources? Each member of a project team – including the client, architect and other designers, and engineers – must strive to fully understand the trends and their long-term implica­tions. This understanding helps team mem­bers consider design guidelines and meas­ure the effectiveness of potential solutions as they plan for change.

II. Make up a vocabulary of new words.

III. Discuss the content of the text in the form of a dialogue.

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

TEXT 23

I. Read this text and translate it into Ukrainian.

Plan for Education

The changes announced in the Govern­ment's five-year plan for education, de­signed to offer parents in England a wider choice of secondary schools for their children, marked the beginning of the end for both comprehensive schools and local education authorities.

Why was there a new emphasis on choice?

Because so many parents in urban areas were desperate to get their children into the successful comprehensive school in their locality but couldn’t get a place. (In rural areas the issue seldom arises as there is usually only one secondary school within driving dis­tance). It wasn't uncommon for there to be ten or more applications for a place in an urban secondary school, with the atten­dant clutter of waiting lists and provision­al offers. At present most local education authorities (LEAs) respond by allocating places on the basis of how close pupils live to a given school and whether they have siblings there already. However, there are some 1,000 comprehensives, redesignated ‘independent specialist’ schools, which are entitled to allocate 10% of their places to children showing particular aptitude for the school's specialization.

How have the politicians responded to this problem?

The Conservatives' solution was to scrap LEA admission procedures altogether and allow head teachers to decide their own intake, so paving the way for selection by academic ability. (They would also offer parents vouchers worth £5,000 a year to spend at low-cost private schools.) La­bour's new plan was an attempt to steal the Tories' thunder by giving popular schools scope to expand and giving them greater autonomy, thus improving standards without having to reintroduce academic selection.

How did it propose in practice to achieve that?

The Government wanted every comprehensive school in England to become an ‘independent special­ist’ school. The idea was not just to give such schools far greater control over their day-to-day spending, but to urge them to build extra capacity as they got ever more successful and popular. The very best schools are able to acquire yet more autonomy by becoming ‘Foundation schools’ (known as ‘super schools’) which can set their own wages (up to £60,000 for the best teachers) and their own cur­ricula. To allay fears that this was a recipe for letting inner city schools sink into neglect, the plan wanted failing schools to be trans­formed into city academies which would be backed by private sponsors and given freedom from LEA control.

II. Write down new words into your vocabulary.

III. Put 10 questions to the text.

IV. Translate the following words and word-combinations into Ukrainian and memorize them:

to announce, local education authority, emphasis, application, attendant, provisional, independent specialist school, aptitude, specialism, admission procedures, head teacher, intake, academic ability, to improve, to reintroduce, day-to-day spending, to urge, wage, to acquire.

TEXT 24

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

Types of Universities

Part i

There are no important official or legal distinctions between various types of 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. ‘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 for the college libraries, there are 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). Now, the majority 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 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 special­izations 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 are non-residential) is almost a separate university. The central organization is responsible for little more than exams and the awarding of degrees.