23. - Schools in Britain and our country
23.- Schools in Britain and our country
The tradition and image of english education is quite old one. The very good example of it is Charles Dickens novel Nicolas Nickleby. He showed there very deep and horrible gap between rich and poor pupils and their other possibilities to study, live and work in the future. He described there by very emotional way the ordinary life of not tom much prefare class of children who didn´t have a good fortune and usually suffered not only becouse of their scanty clothes and worst and more strict education, but also becouse of the more important and basic things like deficiency of food and the following physical and even the mental undernourishment.
Despite of it only 5 percent of nowaday´s children attend the private schools in Britain and if I should be precise only other 2 percent come to the second type f independant schools there what is something like our school. It means with spiritual breath, but compared to our is everything condacted by quite strict way. The rest of all schools are under the authority of state. The main different between the private and state schools is that on the second type the tution and equipment including texrbooks and exercise books, somewhere also the uniforms and other needed things are entirely free. The boys and girls are educated together what isn´t to typical for the majority of the secondary private schools. They prefere to offer to children single- sex education becouse of the tradition, habit from the past.
Than I will start to speak about whole system of education in Great Britain it´s neccesary to remind you that the all system includes all the types of educatin have been started to use since 1988. Another 6 years was created to nowaday´s form. I didn´t mean that everything began to be really new and revolutionary, but a few education acts have been created to raise standarts at all ability levels. The main idea of it was to give to parents a wider choice of schools and to make further and higher education more economically available to large numbers of people. Becouse everybody has to notice that Great Britain has got very good and high quality of education. They want to have so many educated people so it´s possible and they are able to do for i a lot even to offer especially to needed children very special educational ways. But they usually try to educate his type of children in orinary schools, wherever possible. Other children attend day and boarding special schools. If you have got the problem becouse of another reasons as the origin from another ethnic communities or something like this you will attend probably the same schools as the British children, becouse they try to join them together. If they don´t speak English well enough, they are given help to improve their English to be able to enter normal schools.
So, let´s go to start to describe the state schools on the basic line at first. As I told you before the while, boys and girls are tought together in the most primary schools and more than 80 percent of pupils at state secondary schools attend mixed schools as well. Almost all state schools are day schools which have classes from Mondays to Fridays. The school year in England normally begins in early September and ends in the folloeing July- in Scotland varies a bit. The school year is divided into three terms of around 13 weeks each. In many secondary schools are worn the uniforms especially in grammar schools. You can find some primary schools where children were the uniforms too, but parent can vote about them. The school day usually begins between 8 and 9 a.m. and ends around 4 p.m. I includes a fairly long morning and afternoon break and about an hour´s lunch break. The state system of education is divided into 4 statges: Pre-schools and primary, secondary, further and higher education.
Pre- Schools and Primary
The first type of state schools is pre- schools and Primary which includes nursery and primary schools. More than half of 3 and 4 years children go to the pre- schools where they can try to have a firt bigger confrontation of other children who are old like they. Compulsory education begins at 5- it´s quite interesting that in Northern Ireland begins even in their 4. The children hav to go to the infant schools at first which has got big task to teach them the basic skills like drawing, painting and musical activities at first through the movement straight ahead to learnn them to read, write a little and do simple counting. Children can move from infant schools to junior schools at 5 becouse the education is more systhematic there. The usual age for transfer from primary to secondary school is 11.
Secondary education
Secondary schools offer usually another three types of education and you can atten all kinds till your 18, somewhere 19 years old. The first one and most common is comprehensive school. It means that this kind is including everything without another specializations. The typical for it is also the large an size, becouse it´s not to extraordinary to meet on the same school another 900, 1.500 students in the most common. The second type is Grammar school and it´s much more prestigious one becouse only 4 per cent can attend there. Compare to comprehensive schools offer a mainly academic education. And the third and last type of secondary education is Secondary modern school which provide a more general education upto the age of 16 what is the minimum age of leaving school. It means theat from 5 to 16 age study children for compulsory education. Pupils are usually grouped according to their ability becouse they can choose subjects they take interest in The aim is to pass GCE ( General Certificate of Secondary Education) at ordinary level ( 0 level) or the certificate of Secondary Education for those who leave school at 16. These certificates are required for most jobs and further vocational training. At the age of 16- to 18 pupils specialise in 3 or 4 subjects. They sit for the advanced level of the GCE ( A level) whose succesful passing is a condition for eneting he university.
Higher education
Around 30 per cent of all young people in Britain go into full- time higher education. Higher education doesn´t include only universities but also teacher training colleges and other collehes of echnology, art and proffesions allied to medicine. They can be training also in law, banking, nursing or in manufacturing or service industry. Britain has 89 universities including the Open University and 70 other HE instiutions. There are 3 groupes of english universities: 1. Oxford with the longist tradition- from the 12th century and Cambridge- from the 13th century. 2. Redbrick Universities- there were founded in the 19th century – London, Durham, Manchester. They provided some technological training in industrial areas. 3. The new universities opened after 1960- Sussex, York, Kent and others. You can normally spend about 3 to 4 years in university. If you want to study medicine, dentistry or veterinary sciences, after rhat it´s about 5 to 6 years.Undergraduates are those students who study for a degree of Bachelior. The firts degree is either B.A.( Bachelor of Arts), or B.Sc.( Bachelor of science) put after a name. These students are called graduates and they can continue to study further to get the degree of Master. For this tittle have to work on a thesis the las 1 year. The degree of Doctor of Philosophy is given for a thesis which originally contrinutes to human knowledge.
And now I woul like to tell you sth about the private schools in general. As I told you at down this type of schools is still for the more procural pupils what includes about 7 per cent with little bit different level of education. If you want to study there, you have to be prepare on paying a lot becouse one term usually from three cost about 4.000 pounds, but on the other side many schools offer the scholarship. Quite typical for this type of education is also the programe of boarding schools when the pupils live and study usually on the same place. Around 550 independent schools for pupils aged 11 to 19 are commonly known as public schools althouhgt they receive no state funding. I have told you yet also that most independant primary schools for younger pupils are mixed and majority of púrivate secondary schools are single- sex. Most schools require also the uniforms. Before the comming to public school you can to absolvate the preparatory school which should really to open you the way to go to public school without any problemes. The public school are much more smaller than state schools. Tehy have got usually about 500 pupils, only Eton is much larger. Some public school are called Colleges. Although many independent schools follow he National Curiculum what is very prestigable qualification- their children don´t have to pass tests. The quality of individual schools varies,bu very often the most prestigious schools are very good.
Czech educational system
We passed a few changes in education the last 50 years. It was normal to give small children up their 3 years to creches, but it has been abolished. So the first level of official education are kindergartens from 3 to 6 years of age but compare ro pre-schools in England the children don´t learn the basic writting or anything else and have a just fan there with a lot of plays and the firts possibilities to have a daily periodically rule. For the time being the compulsory school attendence is from 6 to 14 years. You can finish this school after the 5th class and start but also continue with education in gymnasium( the another name for british grammar school) which had after that 8 classes up to 1950, or 4 classes after the end of compulsory school. The children in the Czech republic can go also to industrial schools with a leaving examination which isn´t sometimes compulsory. The another and not so used possibility is private school but it´s still quite expansive for normal czech family abd on the other side not to many schools of this type were established. The network of the high education- it means usually of universities in the Czech republic has been considerable extanded. The tittles are the same as in the UK. The level of kowledge of czech students and graduates is still relatively high.