Oxbridge

Oxford and Cambridge are the oldest and most prestigious universities in Great Britain. They are often called collectively Oxbridge. Both universities are independent. Only the education elite go to Oxford or Cambridge. Most of their students are former public school leavers.

The normal length of the degree course is three years, after which the students take the Degree of Bachelor of Arts (B.A.). Some courses, such as languages or medicine, may be one or two years longer. The students may work for other degrees as well. The degrees are awarded at public degree ceremonies. Oxford and Cambridge cling to their traditions, as the use of Latin at degree ceremonies. Full academic dress is worn at examinations.

Oxford and Cambridge universities consist of a number of colleges. Each college is different, but in many ways they are alike. Each college has its name, its coat of arms. Each college is governed by a Master. The larger ones have more than 400 members; the smallest colleges have less than 30. Each college offers teaching in a wide range of subjects. Within the college one will normally find a chapel, a dining hall, a library, and rooms for undergraduates, fellows and the Master, also rooms for teaching purposes. Oxford is one of the oldest universities in Europe. It is the second largest in Britain, after London. Cambridge University started during the 13th century and grew until today. Now there are more than thirty colleges. The universities have over a hundred societies and clubs, enough for every interest one could imagine. Sport is part of students' life at Oxbridge. The most popular sports are rowing and punting.

References

1. College of Education - педагогический колледж

2. grant - стипендия

3. sandwich course -курсы для работающих

4. public schools - высоко-привилегированные частные школы, платные,

закрытые, чаще школы-интернаты

5. degree ceremony - церемония вручения ученых степеней

6. full academic dress - парадная форма одежды

7. the coat of arms - герб

8. undergraduate - студент Оксфордского или Кембриджского университета

9. fellows - младший научный работник колледжа

10. Master-глава колледжа

11. rowing - распашная гребля

TEXT 1

HIGHER EDUCATION IN GREAT BRITAIN

(1) Higher Education in Great Britain is provided by a great number of universities, polytechnics and colleges. The principal post-school institutions of higher education are 47 universities( including the Open University), of which 36 are in England, 8 in Scotland, 2 in Northern Ireland and 1 in Wales.

2) The English Universities are: Aston, Bath, Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, City, Leeds, Liverpool and others. The Scottish Universities are Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, St. Andrews and others. In Northern Ireland there are the Queen's University of Belfast and the University of Ulster.

(3) Apart from the universities there are 30 polytechnics in England and Wales, 14 Scottish central institutions which provide similar studies and Ulster Polytechnic in Northern Ireland.

(4)British Universities are independent, autonomous, self-governing institutions. Although they all receive financial support from the state (about 79 per cent of their incomes is now provided by government grants), the Department of Education and Science has no control over their regulations, curriculum, examinations.

(5) Public funds flow to universities through recurrent grants and in the form of tuition fees; universities derive income also from foreign students and from various private-sector sources. Prior to the Education reform Act of 1988, the recurrent grant was channeled to institutions through the University Grants Committee (UGC), whose main purpose was to allocate public money independently from the government.

(6) Students do not have a right to a place at a university; they are carefully selected by examination performance, and the drop-out rate is low by international standards. The tuition fees are paid out of public funds: in addition most students receive a tax-financed maintenance grant, inversely related to parental income, to cover living expenses. Foreign students and British students taking a degree at an overseas university are not generally eligible for public funding.

(7) Under the Education Reform Act 1988, changes are to be introduced in the structure and funding of higher education to help institutions improve their management and planning, and become more flexible and responsive to the economic and social needs of the country.

(8) British Universities can be roughly divided into three groups: Oxford and Cambridge and the older Scottish universities; the redbrick universities; the new universities. The universities of Oxford and Cambridge date from the 12-th and 13-th centuries and the older Scottish universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and St. Andrews from the 15-th and 16-th centuries. All the others were founded in the 19-th or 20-th centuries.

(9) The universities which were founded between 1850 and 1930 including London University are known redbrick universities. They were called so because that was favourable building material of the time, though they are rarely referred to as

“redbrick” today. The new universities were all founded after the Second World War.

Some of them quickly became popular because of .their modern approach to university courses.

(10) The typical academic programme for university students in Great Britain is composed of varying number of courses or subjects within a field of specialisation. The academic activities for each subject fall into three types: lectures, tutorials and examinations. These three categories - lectures, tutorials and examinations- provide the means by which students prepare themselves in specialised fields of knowledge.

(11) The most usual titles for the first degree in Great Britain are Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science (BSc) and for the second degree Master of MA), Master of Science (MSc) and Doctor of Philosophy .Universities are centres of research as well as teaching and many postgraduates are engaged in research for higher degrees usually Doctorates.

(12) However, universities have never had a monopoly on higher learning. In Britain full-time higher education takes place outside the universities.