Higher Education System in England and Australia

Question: A. Compare and contrast the primary education system in England/the UK with that of ONE country of your choice. B. Compare and contrast the secondary education system in England/the UK with that of ONE country of your choice.C. Compare and contrast the higher education system in England/The UK with that of ONE country of your choice. Answer: Introduction The education system of a country is generally divided into three parts, such as primary, secondary and higher education system. The primary and secondary education systems are the base of any tertiary education system in any of the countries and has a lot of importance in the entire education system of the country. The higher education system in England is generally split into two levels undergraduate programs and postgraduate programs. Some of the undergraduate programs in England are higher national diplomas, bachelors degrees and foundation degrees. Some of the postgraduate programs in England are doctorates, PhDs and masters degrees. The educational institutes in the higher education system of England include various universities, colleges, business schools and specialist institutions. The higher education system in Australia also consists of a number of bachelors degrees, masters degrees, PhDs and doctorates among a number of other programs. The educational institutions in the higher education system of Australia consists of 43 universities including 40 Australian universities, one private specialty university and two international universities. The higher education system in Australia is more innovative and collaborative, which puts it apart from the education system in England having similar policies (Gale, 2013). Higher education system in England and Australia The funding of the higher education system has a significant impact on the quality of the education along with the performance of the educational institutions in the corresponding system. Both the countries have been targeted for criticism for the funding of their higher education system and have been suggested to learn from each others mistakes. Some time back Deakin Universitys Jane Den Hollander stated that the recent changes in terms of cuts to the funding of Australian higher education system will have a catastrophic negative impact in terms of inability of the students to afford the high fees, cuts in the academic salaries, increase in the debts on the education loans and possible increase in job losses (Tight, 2012). The deregulation of the tuition fees in the Australian higher education system has led the universities to be in a price competition. The current funding for the higher education system in England is also deregulated, where almost all the universities charge the f ull 9,000 maximum fee for various programs (Stephenson, 2013). Another factor for comparing the higher education systems in England and Australia is the innovations implemented in the universities in the higher education system and the system itself. Both the countries have similar policies for their higher education system such as the maximum cap for the tuition fees for various higher education programs as the governments of both the countries try to mimic the educational policies from each other (Lozano, 2013). There have been a number of comparisons done in a number of platforms over time, between the higher education system in England and Australia. Such a comparison was made in The Guardian, which published an interactive timeline to show which of the educational systems implemented which innovative solution first (Shaw, 2014). This timeline shows that the Australian government was quicker to implement various innovative solutions in the higher education system and the education system in England has followed a few of the policies implemen ted in Australias education system (Bhandari, 2013). Collaboration among the universities in the higher education system of a country is another factor for comparing the education systems of the two countries. A number of surveys and researches have been done to determine the collaboration among the universities in the corresponding higher education systems. An article in The Guardian showed a perceptive comparison of the research collaboration capabilities of both the higher education systems. The author of the article, Simon Marginson is a professional associate in the University of Melbourne in Australia along with his employment at the Institute of Education in UK as a professor. This article focused on the recent strengthening of the relationship of Australia with various Asian countries (Marginson, 2016). This report also mentions the lack of research collaboration of the institutions in England with various Asian countries such as China and Singapore. The report stresses on the point that the high research collaboration of the Australian universities with that of the Asian countries, is setting the Australian higher education system at a higher level than that of Englands (Altbach, 2015). Conclusion The essay analyzed the higher education system of Australia and England with each other in terms of a number of factors. Australias higher education policies have the universities caught in a price competition, which has made the costs of higher education to be more in Australia than that of England. A number of researches have proved that the higher education system in Australia is first to implement various innovative solutions and has more research collaboration with the Asian countries than Englands higher education system. All of these comparisons between both the higher education system define them to be quite similar. The education system in Australia seems a bit more effective than that of Englands because of the higher exposure into innovation and strong relationship with the fast-growing countries across the world (Hazelkorn, 2015). This in turn allows the students of the higher education system in Australia to have a lot of opportunities for yield more value from various i nnovative policies along with the collaboration with the international students for researches. The funding structure of the higher education system of England can be restructured through a number of careful policies and changes. The fee structure can be regularized to increase the effectiveness of the higher education programs and the students could be provided with lenient education loans from various government bodies in order to enhance the popularity and strength of the higher education system of England (Amaral, 2013). References Altbach, P., 2015. Perspectives on internationalizing higher education. International Higher Education, (27). Amaral, A., Jones, G.A. and Karseth, B. eds., 2013. Governing higher education: National perspectives on institutional governance (Vol. 2). Springer Science Business Media. Bhandari, R. and Blumenthal, P., 2013. International students and global mobility in higher education: National trends and new directions. International Studies, 1(11), pp.316-317. Gale, T. and Parker, S., 2013. Widening participation in Australia in higher education. Hazelkorn, E., 2015. Rankings and the reshaping of higher education: The battle for world-class excellence. Springer. Lozano, R., Lukman, R., Lozano, F.J., Huisingh, D. and Lambrechts, W., 2013. Declarations for sustainability in higher education: becoming better leaders, through addressing the university system. Journal of Cleaner Production, 48, pp.10-19. Marginson, S. 2016 Links with china: Why Australian universities are leading the way. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2014/jul/07/australian-uk-universities-links-china (Accessed: 8 August 2016). Shaw, C. 2014 Higher education policy in the UK and Australia who did what first? View our timeline to find out. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/ng-interactive/2014/jul/09/higher-education-policy-in-the-uk-and-australia-who-did-what-first-view-our-timeline-to-find-out (Accessed: 8 August 2016). Stephenson, J. and Yorke, M., 2013. Capability and quality in higher education. Routledge. Tight, M., 2012. Researching higher education. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).