Half-time

I would like to focus on universities, as my experience with British high schools is very limited, but I cannot avoid mentioning the influence high schooling has on the whole system. Britons do specialise much earlier in comparison with Czech schools, and that is why they often come better prepared to uni. Furthermore, British leaving exam (A-levels or IB) is much more demanding form of examination then Czech Maturita exam. But by no means I want to defend this system – I believe that high schools should provide most general education, especially if their students continue to higher education. Quite surprisingly, it is quite the opposite of the American system, where often even the first university years still continue unspecialised. In this sense, Czech system seems to be the golden mean, with the high schools being general foundation for university specialisation. Britons need to decide in the early age of 15 what would they like to focus on, and this decision will affect their university studies later – this puts a lot of pressure on 15 years old pubescent. When I was fifteen, all I knew was that I do not want to study biology nor chemistry…

Here I finally get to the core of this entry – higher education. In England, most bachelor degrees take 3 or 4 years and are the practical part of the higher education. From the Master degrees, most are academic and follow up to doctoral studies. This is reflected by the numbers of students, who continue with studies after bachelor – according to The Times Higher Education less than one third of students continues after bachelor. Data of the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic shows more than 50 percent continuation rate. One indisputable influence is the tuition fees – 9 thousand pounds just in tuition will deter many people from not studying further. But I think there is more to it, as the post-gradual education differs more from the undergraduate, tends to be more academic and research-based. That means that for people, who do not wish to pursue academic career, this education might be redundant. In that I see huge advantage of tuition fees – if there is accessible loan system, which prevents it from becoming a barrier for some, it forces students to think, whether another few years of their studies is worth the time and money. In Czech Republic, quite a few people would continue studying, because the education is provided by the state and it is easier to continue studying than to find a job.

That also results in different nature of bachelor degrees in Britain – they are more applied, focused on skills rather than knowledge. Good example is philosophy, which is in Czech Republic seen as very inapplicable degree. In England on the other hand, is philosophy very respected degree thanks to different teaching approach as well as reputation among employers. From my Czech friends I know that back home in philosophy the first year is for example focused solely on ancient philosophers. No doubt that those are fundamental, but British approach brings them immediately together with people like J.S.Mill or contemporary Peter Singer. Furthermore, rather than knowledge of philosopher works, application and development of critical thinking is the main goal. And companies reflect that, so when they have job applicant with good philosophy degree results, they do not expect necessarily knowledge of ancient philosophers, but rather strong ‘raw intellect‘ skills and excellent writing skills. It would not be true to say that philosophy does not have employment problems in the UK, but it definitely is in much better situation than at home. And that is for one main reason: focus on skills rather than knowledge.

Another vital part of British education are internships. Some work experience is a necessity in a CV and most students are applying for one in their penultimate year. But internships in the UK are very different – they are not like part-time jobs, but are usually work related to your degree and future career. It is not based on knowing some useful people, the system of internships is very well institutionalised and much more complex. Companies in the UK use internships as major recruitment channel – and that benefits students to. They are offered usual salary for the internship, introduced to regular work problems and can experience how it is to be one of the firm’s employees. High numbers of applicants ensure competitiveness and fairness in the process of selecting suitable candidates. But that is also great disadvantage – some applications are more time-consuming than the UCAS university application… It is truly frightening process – online application, usually with round of mini-essays, then online testing (sometimes in multiple rounds), phone interview, and final set of interviews in person. To submit few of these application will take weeks. Another negative aspect is, that it forces people to ‘build‘ their CVs. Some students are forced to take positions on exec of societies or sport clubs, despite the fact they do not necessarily want to do the job, but they need to have that on their resume. And the same applies to the internship situation – most of the students would rather spend what might be their last holiday somewhere else than in an office in London.

And that is probably the greatest advantage as well as greatest disadvantage of the UK higher education system, its interconnectedness with the labour market. On one hand, it provides better job opportunities for students, who usually start working straight after bachelor degree. The disadvantage is that the whole system is turned into sort of pragmatic calculus, how to make yourself more interesting for employers, and that starts as early as high-school years. Czech system seems to be less rigid in this sense, that employers assess candidates on the interview after they graduate, rather than on their achievements in past years. British recruiting mechanisms are very institutionalised again, and most of the candidates are rejected by some algorithms just on the basis of the quantitative data they can provide about their education. That forces students to adhere as much as possible to these criteria, which I find very demanding and probably even contra productive. In my opinion, students should focus mainly on their course and leave their job worries to their later years of uni. But that supposes that we assign some value to education on its own – once we take it just as tool for creating more skilled labour, this system is very much appropriate.

From what I have written you could have the impression that Czech school offer inapplicable academic education and British are only focused on the applicability and do not care about academic qualities. That of course is not true at all. Most Czech universities secure their absolvents good job prospects and academic excellence of the UK higher education does not need to be questioned. The difference lies in the interconnection of those two worlds, academic and job market. From my experience campuses in England are densely occupied by big companies spending huge amounts of money on their promotion. Together with all those application processes it forces me to think: doe the essay for epistemology I am working on now has any intrinsic value, or is it just indirect way of signalling my skills to potential employers?

There are many more contrasts in these two systems – for example the way modules and credits work would be interesting comparison too. Limited amount of additional credits restrict Britons substantially in how many modules they can sign up, but at the same time allows them to sign up subjects from nearly any department across the university. But I am afraid that my entry is already way longer than it should be, so I would rather keep if for next time.