British Universities

Today there are 89 universities in Britain. Major universities in Great Britain include three in England (University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, and the University of London) and one in Scotland (the University of Edinburg). Many new universities and other institutions of higher education have been founded since World War II ended in 1945.

For seven hundred years Oxford and Cambridge universities dominated the British education.

Oxford university is a sort of federation of colleges. It has twenty-three ordinary colleges for men and five for women. All these are parallel and equal institutions, and none of them is connected with any particular field of study. No matter what subject a man proposes to study, he may study at any of the men’s colleges.

Colleges choose their own students. Students are chosen mainly by academic merit, but the policy of colleges in this respect varies from college to college. Some tend to be rather keen to admit a few men who are very good at rugby or some other sport, or sons of former students or of lords, or eminent citizens, or of millionaries.

Each college has a dining-hall and residential rooms. It is governed by its Fellows (commonly called “dons”), of whom there are usually about twenty or thirty. The dons are also responsible for teaching the students of the college through the tutorial system which is a system of individual tuition organized by the colleges. Each student goes to his tutor’s room once every week to read out an essay which he has written, and for an hour he and the tutor discuss the esssay.

The University prescribes syllabuses, arranges lectures, conducts examinations, and awards degrees. Any student may attend any university lecture. At the beginning of each term (there are three terms in the Oxford academic year) a list is published showing all the lectures being given during the term within each faculty, and every student can choose which lectures he will attend. Attendance at lectures is not compulsory, and no records of attendance are kept.

A person who has taken the lowest degree, a degree of bachelor, is called a graduate, while any graduate that continues his studies or research to receive a degree of master or doctor is called a postgraduate. A degree costs a lot of money.

About 90 percent of students get state grants to cover tuition fees and living costs. The size of the grant is determined by parents income. Since the late 1980s, however grants have been frozen; students can apply for a student loan. Tuition costs a lot of money. The students have to pay for taking examinations, for attending lectures, for borrowing books from the library, for hostel accomodation, etc.

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