Higher Education in the USA

I. Read the text and determine the subtitles of it.

V. Complete this table with the missing verb forms.

IV. Be ready to speak on the topic.

III. Put questions to the text.

II. Make up a vocabulary of new words.

Education in Scotland

I. Read this text and translate it into Ukrainian.

IV. Make up a brief summary of the text.

III. Write down new words into your vocabulary.

V. Make up word-combinations:

1. contribution a) knowledge

2. international b) challenges

3. to provide c) communication

4. study d) to society

5. to meet e) programme

TEXT 16

Scotland has a tradition of educational excellence. Its schools and universities are broad-based and egalitarian, and are highly valued by the Scottish people. The quality of education in the country attracts an ever-growing number of students and researchers from many other parts of the world.

A major factor in the success of the country's industrial and cultural sectors has been Scotland's educational system. The national school system goes back to the sixteenth century, when elementary schools were established in every parish and grammar schools in every major town in Scotland.

Today the state school system is funded through the Scottish Executive and the lo­cal authorities in Scotland. Education is compulsory between the ages of 5 and 16, and although the pre-school (nursery) stage for children aged between 2 and 5 is not compulsory, the Scottish Executive has set a target of creating a nursery place for every 3-year-old child in the country whose parents want it. By August 2011, some 85 per cent of 3-year-olds and 96 per cent of 4-year-olds were in nursery education.

Primary education is provided for all children between the ages of 5 and 11 or 12, and pupils then move on to secondary schools, which teach children up to the age of 18. The standard of teaching is particularly high and only graduates can become teachers.

Following their school careers, students with appropriate qualifications can move to further or higher education at one of Scotland's 13 universities, 6 specialist higher education institutions or 47 further education colleges. Numbers in further education have doubled in less than 10 years and almost half of young people in Scotland now choose to embark on a further education course.

Infinitive	Past Simple	Past Participle	Translation
	had
		gone
be
	grew
		set
choose
	became
		left
teach
		known
	began
find
		taken
	ran
get

TEXT 17

Higher education in the US began when in 1636, a short time after the first colonists came to the territory now called Massachusetts, they founded a college, later to become the famous Harvard University. It is the oldest university in the country, named in honour of John Har­vard who left his library and half property. The College of William and Mary founded in 1693 was the second insti­tution of higher learning established in the colonies. These colonial colleges which later became universities were found­ed to train men for services in the church and civil state. Special emphasis was laid on classical education and only those who knew Latin and Greek were considered educat­ed. By 1776 four more institutions had been opened: Yale University founded in Connecticut in 1701, Princeton University (1746), Washington and Lee University (1749), University of Pennsylvania (1740).

In practically every respect American colleges in those days tried to duplicate the colleges of ancient universities of England. They were residential colleges in the English fashion, but unlike Oxford and Cambridge they were not self-governing.

The American Revolution brought a lot of changes. The independence of the states followed by the creation of the federal government raised new questions about what American higher education should be. The first state uni­versities were founded, though their flowering did not come until after the Civil War, a century later. The technolog­ical needs of agriculture and business stimulated the im­provement of the early nineteen-century universities. Apart from these, agricultural and engineering colleges came into existence to meet the practical needs of industry and agri­culture.

Gradually universities, private or public, became the dominant and most influential structure of higher educa­tion, the position they still hold. Many of the oldest and best known liberal arts colleges, such as Yale, Columbia and Harvard, became universities during this period.

Eventually a peculiarly American structure unlike any other existing university system was produced. In the 1870s graduate school was introduced in the American universi­ty. It was placed structurally on the top of what came to be known as undergraduate school devoted to general edu­cation. Along with this, the practice of majoring in a specific subject became common. By the end of the centu­ry, however, it was beginning to become clear that ‘open curriculum’, allowing the undergraduate to choose most of the courses, had its problems. Efforts were made to recon­stitute in some parts a systematic curriculum in which the courses were strictly prescribed. By 1938 roughly one third of the college courses at Columbia was prescribed. This balance is now typical for many undergraduate programs.

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