Oxbridge

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 440.

TYPES OF UNIVERSITY

There are no important official or legal distinctions between the various types of university in the UK. But it is possible to discern a few broad categories.

This name denotes the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, both founded in the Medieval period. They are federations of semi-independent colleges, each college having its own staff, know as "Fellows". Most colleges have their own dining hall, library and chapel and contain enough accommodation for at least half of their students. The Fellows teach the college students, either one-to-one or in very small groups (know as "tutorials" in Oxford and "supervisions" in Cambridge). Oxbridge has the lowest student/staff ratio in Britain. Lectures and laboratory work are organized at university level. As well as the college libraries, there are the two university libraries, both of which are legally entitled to a free copy of every book published in Britain. Before 1970 all Oxbridge colleges were single sex (mostly for men). Now, the majority admits both sexes.

As with the schools system so also with higher education, there is a real problem about the exclusivity of Britain's two oldest universities. In 1981, for the first time, Oxford took more entrants from state schools than from independent ones. Yet Oxbridge is no longer the preserve of social elite. Nevertheless, although now open to all according to intellectual ability, Oxbridge retains its exclusive, narrow and spell-binding culture. Together with the public school system, it creates a narrow social and intellectual challenge from which the nation's leaders are almost exclusively drawn.