英国概况第三章提纲

Chapter 3 Culture and Social Life

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British educational system is rather complicated. Parents are required by law to send their children to receive full time education at school from 5 to 16.

In Britain, different systems exist side by side.

1) Grammar school:

* Not all grammar schools are private schools. Most of them are run by public money.

*Children started their education at 5.

*At 11, they take public examination called “Eleven Plus”, which are not given by school but examining boards, and pupils who get very high mark can enter grammar school, and who fail in the exam go to average school called secondary modern school.

* Grammar school emphasizes academic study. They offer more subjects to pupils, and it usually is of higher academic standard with better equipment and more qualified teachers. The purpose of the grammar school is to prepare students to get the General Certificate of Education (GCE) at A level.

* The average school offer more practical courses which are considered to be helpful in their future career, and pupils get GCE at D level (ordinary). I

* This system is called grammar school system or “Eleven Plus: system.

* It has a lot of disadvantages: most people think it tries to divide pupils into different classes at too early age. It‟s not quite fair and only pupils who have better family background can go to the grammar school. So nowadays, the grammar schools only take 3% pupils in the secondary school. They choose students by entrance exam.

2) Comprehensive Secondary School System

*It came into being in 1960s.

*Children started their education at 5 and after 6 years in primary school, they are 11. They don‟t take “Eleven Plus”, and they all enter the comprehensive secondary school.

*After another 6 years study, different kinds of students make different choices when they reach the school leaving age 16. First, the common level pupils take easier exams conducted by examining boards to win the certificate of secondary education (CSE), then for more hardworking pupils take CSE at O level, which is higher than average CSE. After that, if they wish, they can continue to study for 2 more years in the advanced classes. They study the subjects in much narrow fields, only 3 or 4 subjects, then after that, they are 18, they sit for another exam, A level. Those who get high mark get into different universities without taking further exams. Those who fail have to take other choices.

*This system is competitive but much more fair than grammar school system. The majority of people choose this system

3) Middle School System. Middle school is for children from 8 to 12. When they are nearly 13, they transfer to comprehensive secondary school. So middle school is in between the primary school and high/secondary school. It‟s not as popular as the comprehensive secondary school system.

4) Public school system公学

There is a problem which is peculiar to British English, and that is the meaning of the word “public school”. A public school in Britain is not public at all –it is a very exclusive private school. What other countries call public schools, the British call state schools, and that other countries call private schools, the British call public schools.

Public schools got their names because when they were set up they did not belong to the Church and reserved a certain number of places for poor boys. These days, top public schools like Eton and Harrow provide a very expensive elite education to the richest and most powerful sections of society and send a number of students to Oxford and Cambridge universities –about 47% of Oxbridge students are from public schools even though non-State schools actually educate only 7% of children. 56% of Conservative MPs were privately educated and even many Labour MPs also went to private schools.

*There are about 100 public schools, and the most famous are Eton College, Harrow School, Winchester College, and Rugby School.

5) Higher education

Old Universities: Oxford and Cambridge (started in the 12th century)

Four Scottish Universities: Universities of St. Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh (15th. and 16th. Century)

The middle-aged universities----redbrick universities: Durham University, The University of London (19tth century)

Open universities: Aston University (from 1950s to 1960s)

Polytechnics技术学院

Community universities

2.Britain’s Papers, Radio and Television

1) Papers

There are about 13 daily and Sunday newspapers published in Britain. Britain‟s newspapers are owned by private organizations. Besides national newspapers, there are also many local