Public Schools

All over the world mentioning of the British education suggests a picture of the "public schools", and it suggests in particular the names of certain very famous institutions—Eton, Oxford and Cambridge; but people do not always realize what place these institutions occupy in the whole educational system. Oxford and Cambridge are universities each having about 12 000 students out of a total of over 250 000 students at all British universities. Eton is a public school, and the best known of the public schools, which, in spite of their names, are not really public at all, but independent and private secondary schools taking boys from the age of thirteen to eighteen years. The public schools in reality form a very small part of the school system of secondary education of Great Britain; only about one out of forty English boys goes to a public school, and one out of 1 500 to Eton.

Apart from the so-called public schools there is a complete system of state primary and secondary education, which resembles in its general form the state education in most other countries. All children must, by law, receive full-time education between the ages of five and sixteen. Any child may attend, without paying fees, a school provided by the public authorities, and the great majority attend such schools. They may continue, still without paying fees, until they are eighteen. The public schools, although unimportant numerically, have been England's most peculiar and characteristic contribution to educational methods, and they have an immense influence on the whole of English educational practice and on the English social structure.

Short Answer Questions

1. British public schools are not as their name suggests because ____.
2. Who are allowed to enter a British public school?
3. The public schools are not important in certain senses because ____.
4. All British children between the ages of five and sixteen must attend a school because ____.
5. Why do people easily think of public schools when British education is mentioned?

(Keys.)