HIGHER EDUACATION IN GREAT BRITAIN

The UK has a vast variety of higher education opportunities to offer students with over 100 universities offering various degree programs for students from the UK and around the world. In addition to universities, there are also polytechnics and a series of different types of assisted colleges, such as colleges of technology, art, etc., which tend to provide more work-orientated courses than universities. Some of these courses are part-time, with the students being released by their employers for one day a week or longer periods.

Universities in Britain enjoy complete academic freedom, choosing their own staff and deciding which students to admit, what and how to teach, and which degrees to award. There is no automatic admission to university, as there are only a limited number of places (around 100,000) available each year. Candidates are accepted on the basis of their A-level results.

Virtually all degree courses are full-time and most last three years (medical and veterinary courses last five or six years).

Universities teach in all major subject areas: arts, science, law, engineering, medicine, social sciences.

Undergraduate courses allow students to develop academic and – in some cases – work-related skills. These programs are usually taught as a combination of lectures, seminars, and small tutorial classes in several modules with varying topical cores. Lectures are given to large groups of students. Seminars and tutorials are much smaller than lecture classes and in some departments саn be on a one-to-one basis (one member of staff and one student).Undergraduate courses mostly take three years to complete and lead up to a Bachelor’s degree (Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Education, or Bachelor of Engineering).

Students who obtain their Bachelor degree (graduates) can apply to take a further degree course, usually involving a mixture of exam courses and research. There are two different types of postgraduate courses — the Master's degree (MA or MSc) and a higher degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).

The most common Master’s degrees in the UK usually last for one year. A British Master’s degree requires intensive study, with research and critical thinking being a very important part of every postgraduate course. Apart from their classes, students spend a significant part of their time researching their specialist subject area. A Master’s degree is the requirement for entry into a Ph.D. course. Postgraduates are usually assessed through written assignments and tests. Some postgraduate degrees require dissertation modules at the end of their course.