Education in Great Britain. Бояринцева Е.И - 9 стр.

      7. In England, university entrance is based on the results of the               Lecturers are having to take larger classes and the ratio of aca-
A-level exams, but there are a number of steps which many pupils go            demics to students is falling in line with practices more common on the
through in the two years before university. Here are some of the main          Continent. Students, meanwhile, fear their degrees being devalued.
ones. How many of them are also necessary in your country?                     While once they offered entry into an elite, assured of employment,
       a) Visit a careers office at school.                                    now they are no guarantee of avoiding the dole queue. To make matters
       b) Discuss their choice with their teacher or headteacher.              worse, some years ago it was suggested students start paying a propor-
       c) Send off for prospectuses from various universities (bro-            tion of university fees – earlier paid by the state – and student grants
chures which describe the university and its courses).                         slowly evolved into loans payable once they start earning.
       d) Visit the universities they are interested in (go to "open days").
       e) Apply to the universities by filling in a form listing five          TASKS
choices.
       f) Take school exams: the results are used to predict "A" level               1. Find the equivalents from the text to the following words
results, and are recorded on university applications.                          and word combinations
                                                                                     Претерпевает изменения, традиция предоставления высоко-
Text B. Read the text and do the tasks                                         качественного образования, отбирали с верхушки школьной пи-
                                                                               рамиды, качество университетов находится под угрозой, дипломы
                   Universities go to the market                               обесцениваются, нет гарантий избежать очереди на бирже труда,
                                                                               частично оплачивают стоимость учебы, стипендии и гранты пре-
       The country has always had a tradition of high quality higher           вращаются в займы, соотношение количества преподавателей к
education for relatively few students, selected from the top of academic       числу обучаемых.
pile. Over the last few years, however, the government has made a
concerted effort to widen the sector so that a larger proportion of the               2. Answer the questions. (You can use them as a plan to render
population gains qualifications.
                                                                               the text later)
       Universities and colleges are now financed according to the
number of students they attract. The results have exceeded expectations               1. How is the British educational system doing? Are the scores
so dramatically that expansion has now had to be capped. Student               and knowledge of current students declining compared with those of
numbers have doubled over the past decade to nearly 1,6 million. A             ten or twenty years ago?
target, set in 1989, of one in three young people entering higher educa-              2. What is done by the government to address problems with the
tion by the year 2000 was in sight within three years.                         educational system and to improve it?
       Panic has now set in at the realization that more students means               3. Are students adequately trained to deal with the world of
more money to pay for them – cash which just is not available. Last            work?
November, the government announced a budget cut in higher education                   4. What groups in society have access to education, for example,
amounting to a 9.4 percent reduction in capital spending.                      to higher education?
       Universities began to seek extra income from industry, com-                    5. Are traditional classroom practices being changed?
merce and from renting out their premises to summer schools. But                      6. What new trends are there in education in other countries?
vice-presi-dents still warn that the famed quality of British universities
is under threat.

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