И. А. Курбасова Е. И. Силантьева

TEXT 4. HIGHER EDUCATION IN GREAT BRITAIN
(1) The structure of higher education in Great Britain is very complex. There are four main types of higher edu­cational institutions: universities, colleges of advanced tech­nology, technical colleges and teacher-training colleges.

(2) A university consists of a large number of faculties: medicine, arts, philosophy, law, music, natural sciences, economics, engineering, agriculture, commerce, education and theology. The course of study at the university gener­ally lasts 3-4 years.

(3) Of all British universities Oxford is the oldest be­cause its history goes back to the 12th century. Cambridge University was founded in the 13th century. These two universities are considered the best in Great Britain as the standards of teaching are very high there. Both universi­ties are the most "aristocratic" ones in Britian. Young people from the working class families cannot study at Oxford and Cambridge because the cost of living and edu­cation there is higher than at any other university. In general, higher education in Great Britain is paid while in the Soviet Union it is free of charge.

(4) The system of education at these universities is rather unusual: the teaching is based on lectures and the so-called tutorial system. It means that each student has a teacher or a tutor who plans his work. The tutor recommends the student to attend some lectures if they are interesting for his work. Each week some students come to see their tutor and he discusses with them the work which they have done.

(5) Each academic year has three terms (from 8 to 10 weeks each) with vacations between the terms.

(6) Colleges of advanced technology are in status equal to universities and in fact they are technological universities. They provide their students with higher technical education.

(7) Technical colleges train specialists in one of the fields of national economy, for example, food technology, heating, ventilation, refrigeration engineering, etc.

(8) As to teacher-training colleges, they provide the country with highly educated teachers for schools, colleges, and universities.