Education in the United Kingdom

Education in the United Kingdom is a devolved matter with each of the countries of the United Kingdom having separate systems under separate governments: the UK Government is directly responsible for England; whilst the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive are responsible for Scotland,^[1] Wales^[2] and Northern Ireland, respectively. In England and Wales, the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) is applicable to children aged 5 and below, and the national curriculum is applicable to children aged 5+.

For details of education in each country, see:

• Education in England
• Education in Northern Ireland
• Education in Scotland
• Education in Wales

Stages

In each country there are five stages of education: early years, primary, secondary, further education (FE) and higher education (HE).^[3] The law states that full time education is compulsory for all children between the ages of 5 (4 in Northern Ireland) and 16, the compulsory school age (CSA).^[3] In England, compulsory education or training has been extended to 18 for those born on or after 1 September 1997. This full-time education does not need to be at a school and a number of parents choose to home educate.^[4] Before they reach compulsory school age, children can be educated at nursery if parents wish though there is only limited government funding for such places.^[5] Further Education is non-compulsory, and covers non-advanced education which can be taken at further (including tertiary) education colleges and Higher Education institutions (HEIs). The fifth stage, Higher Education, is study beyond A levels or BTECs (and their equivalent) which, for most full-time students, takes place in universities and other Higher Education institutions and colleges.

The National Curriculum (NC), established in 1988, provides a framework for education in England and Wales between the ages of 5 and 18. Though the National Curriculum is not compulsory it is followed by most state schools, but some private schools, academies, free schools and home educators design their own curricula.^[6] In Scotland the nearest equivalent is the Curriculum for Excellence programme, and in Northern Ireland there is something known as the common curriculum.^[5] The Scottish qualifications the National 4/5s, Highers and Advanced Highers are highly similar to the English Advanced Subsidiary (AS) and Advanced Level (A2) courses.^[7]

Rankings

Traditionally a high-performing country in international rankings of education, the UK has stagnated in recent years in such rankings as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests; in 2013 for reading and maths the country as a whole stood in the middle-rankings, a position broadly similar to three years before.^[8] Within the UK Scotland performed marginally better than England; both were slightly ahead of Northern Ireland and markedly ahead of Wales.^[9] However these results contradict those of the education and publishing firm Pearson published in 2014, which placed the UK in second place across European countries and sixth worldwide; these rankings took account of higher-education graduate rates, which may have accounted for the higher ranking than in PISA.^[10]

See also

• Higher education in the United Kingdom
• Home education in the United Kingdom
• Faith schools in the United Kingdom
• Dyslexia support in the United Kingdom
• Examination boards in the United Kingdom
• Special education in the United Kingdom
• Teachers' trade unions in the United Kingdom

References

1. The Scottish Government scotland.gov.uk, accessed 6 june 2009
2. About wales.gov.uk, accessed 6 June 2009
3. "EDUCATION SYSTEM IN THE UK" (PDF). British Government. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
4. Guardian article
5. "THE EDUCATION SYSTEMS OF ENGLAND & WALES, SCOTLAND AND NORTHERN IRELAND" (PDF). British Council. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
6. Education Otherwise website
7. "The British Education System". HMC Projects. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
8. Coughlan, Sean. "UK makes no progress in Pisa tests". BBC. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
9. "Pisa ranks Wales' education the worst in the UK". BBC. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
10. Coughlan, Sean. "UK 'second best education in Europe'". BBC. Retrieved 8 May 2014.

Further reading

• Blatchford, Roy (2014). The Restless School. John Catt Educational. p. 136. ISBN 978-1909717077.
• Christodoulou, Daisy (2014). Seven Myths About Education. Routledge. p. 148. ISBN 978-0415746823.
• Gearon, Liam (2002). Education in the United Kingdom. David Fulton Publishers Ltd. ISBN 1853467154.
• Giddens, Anthony; Griffiths, Simon (2006). Sociology. Polity Press. pp. 682–728. ISBN 0745633781.
• Machin, Stephen; Vignoles, Anna (2005). What's The Good Of Education? The Economics Of Education In The UK. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691117349.
• Peal, Robert (2014). Progressively worse: The Burden of Bad Ideas in British Schools. Civitas. p. 298. ISBN 978-1906837624.
• Staples N., Rebecca; Cochran, Moncrieff (2008). Early Childhood Education: An International Encyclopedia. IV. Praeger. pp. 1281–1318. ISBN 0313341435.

External links

• Department for Education at the UK government
• Studies from the Office for National Statistics regarding Children, Education and Skills
• Information on education in United Kingdom, OECD - Contains indicators and information about United Kingdom and how it compares to other OECD and non-OECD countries
• Diagram of British education systems, OECD - Using 1997 ISCED classification of programmes and typical ages.
• Fully searchable UK school guide independent and state