Education
3
stages of education:
primary school, secondary (age of 11-12), further
education.
Historical
background
The British government attached little importance to
education until the end of the 19centuty (public schools (бесплатная средняя школа; закрытая средняя школа (в Англии) - character – building and team spirit; boarding schools– future up position in the higher ranks of the
army, in business and politics.
Today education is one of the most frequent subjects for
public debate in the country.
Organization
Central government does not prescribe a detailed programme of learning
to determine what books and materials should be used. Nor does it dictate the
exact hours of the school day, the exact dates of holidays or the age at which
a child must start in full-time education. It is so because the system has been
΄influenced by
the public-school tradition that a school is its own community . Universities, although financed by the government, have more au΄tonomy. Each one has complete control over what to teach,
how to teach it, who it accepts as students and how to test these students.
Style
Today much of the
public debate about educational ΄policy focuses not
so much on how to
help people develop useful knowledge and skills as on how education might help to bring about a better society – on social
΄justice rather than on efficiency.
1.
It has ΄influenced the general style
of teaching, which has tended to give priority to
developing understanding rather than acquiring ΄factual knowledge
and learning to apply this
knowledge to specific tasks.
2.
An ΄emphasis on
academic ability rather than practical ability (high-quality education for the
intelligent and academically inclined
with comparatively little attention given to the educational needs of the
rest.)
All British schools and universities give a really
high priority to sport. The idea is that it helps to develop the “complete”
person.
Recent
developments
Today most eleven-year-olds all
go on to the same local school (in 1965 they
have to take an exam at
this age and than
go to a grammar (средняя классическая школа (государственная для детей от 11 до 16 или 18 лет; программа предусматривает изучение древних языков) or secondary
modern school (сре́дняя совреме́нная шко́ла (для детей от 11 до 16 лет; государственная; имеет практическую направленность; программа не предусматривает изучения классических языков) .
In 1980s two major changes were introduced by the
government:
1.
The setting up of a national curriculum. (There
are 3 of them for
England and Wales, another for Scotland and another for Northern Ireland)
2.
All schools can now decide to ‘opt out’ (of the control of the LEA and put themselves directly under the control of
the appropriate government department.
School
life
Many children do not begin full-time attendance at school until they are about five and start primary school. Nearly all schools work a five-day week,
with no half-day, and are close on Saturdays. Methods of teaching vary, but
there is most commonly a ΄balance between
formal lessons with the teacher at the front of
the classroom, and activities in
which children work in small groups round a table with the teacher supervising.
Public
exams
Everywhere except Scotland each school or LEA decides which board’s exams its
pupils take. The boards publish a
separate ΄syllabus for each subject. The exams have nothing to do with
school years as such. They are divorced from the school system.
Education
beyond sixteen
At the age of sixteen people are free to leave school if
they want to. Far fewer sixteen-year-olds go straight out and look for a job
than used to. Most do not find employment immediately
and many take part in training schemes which involve on-the-job training (сокр. OTJ упр. обучение на рабочем месте [без отрыва
от производства) combined with part-time college courses.
About half of those who stay in full-time education will have to leave their school, either because it does not have a sixth form( старший класс-«шестой класс» (Великобритания: последние два года
обучения в средней школе (17 и 18 лет) and go to a Sixth-form College (подготови́тельный
ко́лле́дж (среднее
учебное заведение для молодёжи старше 16 лет; государственное или частное;
готовит к поступлению в университет по расширенной программе шестого класса [sixth form]; выпускные экзамены сдаются на
повышенном уровне [см. Advanced Level]; существует самостоятельно или при единой школе [comprehensive school]), or College of Further Education.
Universities normally select students on the basis of A-level results = Advanced Level
по программе средней школы на повышенном уровне) and an interview. Those with better exam
grades are more likely to
be accepted. The availability of higher education has increased greatly in the
second half of the twentieth century. But nevertheless universities take only
the better students.
Elections
The
system
Electoral system is remarkably simple.
The country is divided into a number of areas of roughly equal
population, known as constituencies.
Anybody who wants to be an MP must declare himself as a candidate of one of constituencies. On polling day
votersgo to polling station and are each given the ballot paper with the names of the ΄candidates. Each voter
put a cross next to the name of the ΄candidate. After the polls have closed the
ballot papers are counted. The candidate with the largest number of votes is
the winner and becomes the MP for the constituency. There is no counting of the
proportion of votes
for each party, no extra allocation of seats
in Parliament.
Formal
arrangements
Government takes a decision about the terms of an election. According to the
law an election should be held at least every
5 years, but may be held at any
time before the end of this term. If a government is popular then the
election is often "called" after around 4 years in power.
Formally, it is
not necessary to belong to a party
to be a ΄candidate. Candidates don’t even have to live in the constituency .
Supposed candidates have to deposit £500 with the Returning Officer and they get this money back if they get 5% of
the votes or more. Candidates could include theirs “political description” on
the ballot paper.
The
campaign
To be ΄eligible to vote, a
person must be at least eighteen years
old and be on the electoral register.
There is the ΄contrast
between formal arrangements and political reality campaign not
only within the constituencies, but at a national level.
The amount of
money that candidates are allowed to spend on their campaigns is strictly
limited.
By agreement, they don’t buy time on TV.
΄Canvassing is the
activity, which occupies most of the time of local party workers and is a kind
of election ritual.
It includes asking people about their intension to
vote, observing the voting process, reminding people to vote, sometimes
offering the transport and other activities.
Polling
day
General elections always take place on a Thursday.
There are not public holidays, so
polling stations are open from 7
in the morning till 10 at night. As schools are used
as polling stations pupils get a holiday.
Each voter has to vote at a particular polling station. After the polls close,
the marked ballot papers are taken to a central place in the
constituency and counted. The Returning
Officer then makes a public announcement of the votes cast for each candidate and declares the winner.
Election
night
The period after
voting has become a television extravaganza .
Both BBC and ITV start their programmes as soon as voting finishes. The
first excitement of the night
is the race to declare. It is a matter of local pride for some constituencies to be the first to
announce their result. By midnight are
making predictions about the compositions of the
newly elected House of Commons. Some constituencies however are not able to
declare their results until well into Friday afternoon because they are rural.
Recent
results and the future
Since the middle of the 20th century the
contest to form the government has effectively been a straight fight between
the Labour and Conservative parties.
Generally, the north of England and the most inner areas of English cities
stand for the Labour party, and the south of England and most areas outside the
inner cities stand for Conservative MP. Scotland used to be good territory for the Conservatives. The Liberal party was traditionally strong
in Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland always has about the same proportion of
Protestant Unionist and Catholic
Nationalist MPs.
In the thirteen elections from 1945 to 1987 the
Conservatives were generally more successful than Labour. In the 1992 election
the Conservatives won the fourth time in
a row. In 1997 the picture changed dramatically – Labour won the largest
majority in the House of Commons. At any way, the winning party at election is
the one who managed to get the support of the small number of “floating voters” .
Religion
According to denomination the overwhelming majority of the residents
of Britain belong to the Protestants,
the rest forming the ΄Catholic and Presbyteria пресвитерианин (представитель пресвитерианства - религиозного течения, являющегося разновидностью кальвинизма в англоязычных странах) minorities. Only 17% of the adult population of
Britain belong to one the Christian churches,
and this proportion continues to decline.
Today there is complete freedom of practice,
regardless of religion or sect. But it was not always so. Until the mid-19th
century those who did not belong to the Church
of England the official,
“established” or state church, were barred from some public offices.
There are two
state Churches in Britain: the
Church of England, or Anglican Church, and the Church of Scotland.
England
was converted to Christianity,
in 597 AD when Roman Pope ([pəup] папа римский) sent
St. ΄Augustine with about 40 monks
to Britain to babtize King Ethelbert of Kent and so pave
for the conversion of all England to Christianity. By
the 8th century England was a Christian country under the ΄influence
of the Roman Church.
The 40 Roman monks ([mʌŋk] монах) landed in Kent in ΄Saxon town of Cantwara-byrig – “the borough of the men of Kent”, present Canterbury, which
became the cradle of Christianity in Saxon England.
Canterbury Cathedral (
which was built in the same year and for 350 years was the destination) of countless pilgrims today
is the Mother Church of Anglicans throughout the world.
In
1533 King Henry VIII,
had broken away from Rome and
declared himself head of the Church of England (the Protestant state church).
Ever since 1534 the ΄monarch has been Head of the Church of England, which includes a wide variety of
Protestant belief. The Archbishop of
Canterbury is the most senior spiritual leader of the Church of England and is ΄Primate of All England.
There are other Christian Churches – the Free, or Nonconformist
Churches (Any English Protestant who does
not conform to the doctrines or practices of the established Church of England).
The main ones are: the Methodist Union; the Baptists; the United Reformed Church;
and the Salvation Army. The Roman Catholic Church returned to Britain in
1850.
Among other religions the oldest is Judaism.
The Jews are divided into different religious
groups.
There are also recently established religious groups: Hindus (1milion), Buddhism ,
Muslims (1,5 million) and Sikhs.
Muslim community is the most important. There are over 1000 mosques and
prayer centres, of which the most important is
the London Central Mosque at Regent’s Park
The
Church of England
has always been closely identified with the ruling establishment and authority.
It is used to be known as “the Tory Party at prayer”.
Most working-class
people in England and Wales belong to the Nonconformist,
or “Free” Churches. Generally
speaking, 45% of the British people are Anglican, 9 – Catholic,
4 – Presbyterian, 3 – ΄Muslim,
2 – ΄Methodist, 1 – Hindu,
other and non-religious make 36%. Customs
and Traditions (National Character).
Almost every nation has a reputation of
some kind. The British have been known as superior,
snobbish, aloof, hypocritical and unsociable. Though these characteristics have been noted people
from all over the world, the traditional opinion about British was based on the
habits of those Britons, who could afford to travel: diplomats, merchants and those who were taught by Public School their “stiff-upper-lip” philosophy. The British regard their own community as the centre of the world
and look on foreigners in general with a slight contempt and think that nothing is as well done
elsewhere as in their own country. Andre Maurois, a French biographer and novelist, described Britain as “a far country, far not in distance but in
customs and idea” where it is so difficult for a foreigner “to find his
depth”. British think that their important national values are ΄tolerance, ΄decency, moderation, consensus. As seen by
outsiders, qualities of the typical British also include reserve and
modesty, politeness
and helpfulness, a gift for understatement and awkwardness
with women and children. Many more books have been written by foreigners
than by Englishmen on English traits and their authors are by no means always
in agreement. The British people are known to be profoundly conservative by ΄temperament. They always prefer their glorious past with its reassurance to the uncertainty of the future.
The British are community-minded (социально активный) people. They have had a long tradition of democracy, not so much in the sense of
creating formal institutions, but in the active sense of popular cooperation to
uphold the will of the people. The British are individualist-minded people as well. Every ΄regiment in the army, every school or university, many municipal corporations, clubs and other
institutions tend to have their own uniform,
traditions or their signs identifying them and making them different from
others.
“The
Englishman’s home is his castle”
is the saying known all over the world. The British people more strongly
than other nations are attached to their country and to their homes. The
British are on guard of their privacy and respect privacy of other people. They
prefer, whenever possible, sending a letter to making a telephone call which may
happen to be untimely and intrusive.
Britain is supposed to be the land of law and order. The British deeply respect law, both written
and unwritten, and strictly obey it. They never violate traffic order or game rules, they play fair and prefer to
turn any conflict into a ΄compromise . Many British people are guided by Victorian values and make them the principle of
their life. Victorian values teach to work hard, to improve yourself, to live
within your income, to give a hand to your neighbor, to respect yourself, to be
self-reliant ,
to be a good member of your community, to take it as duty to help others ΄voluntarily when you get greater prosperity,
to have tremendous pride in
your country.
The best known and universally marked qualities of the
British people, especially English, are coldness
and reserve. They do not talk very much to strangers, do not show their
emotions openly.
Closely related to British reserve is British modesty.
English people
hate boastfulness).
Snobbery is not so common in England today as
it was at the beginning of the century. It still exists, however, as the
British accept and enjoy the distinctions of social class. George Bernard Show
once made the famous remark that an Englishman cannot open his mouth without
making some other Englishman despise
him. For the way English is spoken gives away not only regional identity but class ΄status too. The so-called Received Pronunciation (особ. выпускников привилегированных частных средних школ) systematically established
through the Public School is the accepted ΄dialect of the national elite. The majority of middle class people speak a sort of
classless, democratic version of RP,
with a slight admixture of a local regional accent. The ΄Birmingham is considered ugly, cockney.
Сockney dialect—is associated with criminals, ΄Scottish is
thought of as serious and sensible, Irish as poetic. Westcountry
΄accent is
identified with farm-workers, sometimes considered stupid by city folk.
The British people are great lovers of gardens, dogs and horses. Their devotion to animals
and gardening is a tradition that is
rooted not only in their own souls but in the minds of the rest of the world
too.
Gardening
is one of the most
popular hobbies in the country.
Though Britain does not often produce world-famous
sportsmen the British people are sport-lovers
and taught the rest of the world organized games. Golf was first played in Scotland in the 15th century, cricket was first played in England in the
16th century. The first team sports such as football, rugby and hockey were
first played in British Public Schools. There are also such sports as: fox-hunting, rowing
and horse racing. But when a Briton, North Briton is neither
playing nor watching games he likes to talk about them.
The British are a gambling nation.
There are thousands of betting shops in Britain among them are bingo and football pools.
The British
people the world’s tea drinkers. They drink a quarter
of all the tea grown in the world
each year. In a British home there is the early
morning cup of tea, tea at breakfast,
tea at 11 o’clock in the morning, tea at lunch, then tea after lunch; there is tea
for tea, tea for supper and then
the last thing at night is tea.
The British
have the so called English sense of
humor. This is perhaps the most fundamental
trait the British have in common. It is an ironic sense of humour which lends
itself to self-caricature.
Brutish
people are polite in public much
more than any other nation. Most British people expect the person in front of
them to hold the door open for them.
A good conclusion about the British national character
may be the reference to the words of Arthur Kolstler, a foreign writer who
lived in Britain for many years and who described average Englishmen as an attractive hybrid
between an ostrich hand the lion: keeping his head in the
sand as long as possible, but when forced to confront
reality capable of heroic
deeds .
Bank
holidays
Every country and every nation has its own holidays, customs and traditions. The British people are proud
of their traditions, cherish them and carefully keep them up,
because many of them are associated with the history and cultural development
of the country. Speaking about British traditions we should distinguish bank, or public holidays, annual
festivals ,
celebrations and pageant ceremonies.
The term “bank
holiday” dates back to the 19th century when the Bank Holiday
Acts of 1871 and 1875 declared certain days to be bank holidays, that is days
on which banks were to be closed. Today their observance is no longer limited to banks only.
Post offices, most factories and shops are closed too. There are 8 bank
holidays: 1New Year’s Day, 2Good Friday,
3Easter Monday, 4May Day Bank Holiday, 5Spring Bank Holiday, 6August (or
Summer) Bank Holiday, 7Christmas Day and 8Boxing Day. All public holidays,
except New Year’s Day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day are movable, that is they
do not fall on the same day each year.
Most of Bank holidays are of religious origin, and meant holy
days. But for the greater part of the population they have long lost their
religious significance and are simply days on which people relax, eat, drink
and make merry.
Christmas Day (рождество), which is the 25th of December, is the
most widely celebrated and the most colourful and merry of all bank holidays.
On Christmas Eve everything is rush. Offices close at
one o’clock, but the shops stay open late. The last preparations and purchases are made. Christmas trees are
decorated, Christmas cards are arranged on shelves and
tables, stockings are hung over the end of the bed, a carrot for the reindeer is
left on the mantelpiece.
People travel from all parts of the country to be at
home for Christmas.
Boxing Day (День подарков) on the 26th
of December is the day of visiting friends, of giving Christmas boxes or gifts
of money to servants. Many people still give a Christmas to paperboys and papergirls. But most people sit in front
of TV recovering from
Christmas Day.
New Year’s Day is on January 1. In
England New Year is not as widely observed as Christmas. The most accepted type
of celebration is New Year party. Most people see the old year out and the New
Year in with their friends and relations. At midnight on New Year’s Eve when Big
Ben is chiming everybody join hands and sing
Robert Burn’s poem “The good old days”.
Good Friday (Святая Пятница) is the Friday before ΄Easter when the church marks the death of Christ Jesus Christ Христос). On this day
people eat hotcross-buns - small sweet rolls marked on top with a cross.
On Easter people give each other chocolate Easter eggs.
Easter Monday is a traditional day the start of the summer tourist season, as
schools close for two weeks.
May Day Bank Holiday is the first
Monday after May 1 (May Day). May Day which is a celebration of the coming of
spring. Different outdoor events are held, and May-queen, the most beautiful
girl of the celebration, is selected. In villages throughout Britain children
dance and sing round the maypole to
celebrate the end of winter and welcome summer.
Spring
Bank Holiday falls on the
last Monday in May. Summer (August) Bank
Holiday is held on the last Monday
in August. These two bank holidays are great days for excursions. In Britain
people generally make a
΄beeline for the coast. Throngs of cars take to the road to get the family
to some seaside resort for a bathe or a game on the beach. On the last weekend in
August there is a big carnival at Notting Hill in West London. People who take part in
it drees up in ΄fabulous ΄costumes.
Festivals
and ceremonies
Besides
bank, or public, holidays there are festivals, anniversaries and celebration
days on which certain traditions are observed, but unless they fall on a
Sunday, they are ordinary working days. They are: St. Valentine’s Day, Pancake Day, April Fool’s Day, Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes’ Night, Remembrance (or Poppy Day, Hallowe’en and
many others including Royal Ascot -the biggest
horse race in Britain, the Proms– a series of
classical music concerts, the London ΄Marathon,
Harvest Festival, Dog Shows and so on.
