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Higher education in Great Britain

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When higher education of Great Britain is being spoken about the University education is generally meant. But in fact there is a considerable amount of past-school education, including part-time as well as full-time studies carried on in technical colleges teacher training colleges, art colleges, institutes of adult education and so on.

Higher education, consisting of degree and equivalent courses, has experienced a dramatic expansion. The number of higher education students in Britain almost doubled between 1979 and 1993 to 1.5 million, so that today around 30 percent of young people enter full-time higher education.

There are some 90 universities, which enjoy academic freedom. Every University is autonomous and responsible to its governing body. The regulations differ from University to University. While there are similarities between them, they all differ from Oxford and Cambridge, where are a number of separate colleges, each with their own regulations and courses of studies. The new, so-called ”red-brick” Universities are divided into various faculties: Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Science, Faculty of Social and Economic Studies, etc.

University degree courses are generally being taken for three, four or even five years. University teaching combines lectures practical classes and small group teaching in either seminars or tutorials. The last is a traditional feature of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

First degree courses are mainly full time and usually last three years, with longer courses in subjects such as medicine. Universities offer courses in a broad range of academic and vocational subjects, including traditional arts subjects, the humanities, and science and technology. The government encourages young people to choose degree courses in subjects, or combinations of subjects, that provide the knowledge and skills required by a technologically advanced economy .

Over 95 percent of students on first degree and comparable higher education courses receive government grants covering tuition and accommodation and other maintenance expenses. Parents also contribute, the amount depending on their income. In addition, students can take out loans to help pay their maintenance costs.

British Economy

The United Kingdom is one of the world’s largest exporters of manufactured goods per head of population. For every person employed in agriculture eleven people are employed in mining, manufacturing and building.

Apart from coal and iron ore Britain has very few natural resources. Its agriculture provides only half the food it needs. Most of if the raw materials such as oil and various metals (copper zinc, uranium ore and others) have to be imported. Britain also has to import timber, cotton, fruit and farm products.

Britain used to be richly forested, but most of the forests were cut down to make more room for cultivation. The greater part of land is used for cattle and sheep breeding, and pig raising. Among the crops grown on the farms are wheat, barley and oats. The fields are mainly in the eastern part of the country. Most of the farms are small. Farms tend to be bigger where the soil is less fertile.

Britain produces high quality expensive goods, which has always been characteristic of its industry. A shortage of raw materials, as well as the high cost of production makes it unprofitable for British industry to produce semi-finished goods or cheap articles. Britain mostly produces articles, requiring skilled labour, precision instruments, chemicals. Britain high quality consumer goods and articles made of various kinds of synthetic (man-made) materials.

The original basis of British industry was coal mining, and the early factories grew up not far from the main mining areas.

Glasgow and Newcastle became great centres of engineering and shipbuilding . Lancashire produced cotton goods and Yorkshire woollens , with Sheffield concentrating on iron and steel. Birmingham developed light engineering. There appeared a tendency for industry and population to move to the south, particularly to the London area. Britain’s industry is now widely dispersed. Great progress was made in the development of new industries, such as the aircraft, automobile, electronic industries and others. A number of atomic power reactors were made.

Great emphasis was made on the development of the war industry

US Economy

The United States is rich in natural resources the main being iron ore, coal and oil. The nation produces more than 100 million tons of iron a year. Four fifths of the ore mined in the USA comes from the Great Lakes region. Though a great deal of the ore has been used up, it resources have not been exhausted, most of the coal mined in the USA is used by power plants to produce electricity. Coal is also used in the chemical industry for the manufacture of plastics and other synthetics. The production, processing and marketing of such oil products as petrol (called “gasoline” or “gas” in the USA) make up one of America’s largest industries. The basic metals and minerals mined in the United States are zinc, copper and silver.

There are two branches of agriculture in the United States. They are crop production and animal husbandry. Some of the main crops grown in the USA are wheat, maize, cotton, tobacco and fruit. Cattle breeding and pig raising make up an important branch of America’s agriculture.

To make the farmer’s work more productive scientific methods of farming are employed and modern technique of freezing, canning and packaging farm products is used.

The United States is a highly industrialized country with various branches of heavy industry prevailing, namely the mining, metallurgical , automobile and chemical industries as well as engineering. Many branches of light industry are also developed, among them are the textile, clothing, food and wood-working industries.

A great deal of attention in American industry is devoted to research and emphasis is made on the use of labour saving machines, in the past few years the number of workers has increased only a few per cent, while the number of scientists and engineers in the plants has almost doubled.

Mechanization and automation do away with thousands of office jobs, intensify production and increase labour productivity. But they also bring about a further growth of unemployment.

New industries are created as new discoveries are made in physics , chemistry and other sciences. Atomic energy, for example, has created a wide range of new industries. Electronics has become a major industry . Great emphasis is being made on the war industry.

American industry is distributed unevenly. Most of the industrial enterprises are located in the eastern part of the country. But industry is spreading out as there is a tendency to build factories far removed from the home plant and closer to natural resources and markets. Good transportation facilities and rapid communication systems make it possible for factories.

The leading US exports are industrial machinery, electronics equipment, textiles, iron, coal, oil products and chemicals, grain and other farm products.

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