| Chapter 1: | The United Kingdom |
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professional bodies such as the Association of Accounting Technicians and externally awarded degrees—including 2-year full-time foundation programmes that combine academic study with workplace learning.
The university sector in the United Kingdom has been in development for the past nine centuries. The University of Oxford, founded sometime before 1167, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. The United Kingdom's other ‘ancient universities’ are the Universities of Cambridge (1209), St Andrews (1413), Glasgow (1451), Aberdeen (1495) and Edinburgh (1582). The Universities of London, Wales, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield—the ‘civic’ or ‘red-brick’ universities— were founded in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The 1960s saw the founding of many ‘new universities’, as they were called at the time—they are sometimes referred to as the ‘plate-glass’ universities. The Open University, the United Kingdom's sole mainly distance-learning university, was also established in this period.
Most of the older (pre-1992) universities operate under a Royal Charter (which sets out their overall constitution) and statutes (which give more detail as to how the university should operate). As a result of the Further and Higher Education Act of 1992, all former polytechnics became universities. Most post-1992 universities, and certain other higher education institutions, operate under an Instrument of Government and Articles of Government.
According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, in the 2006–2007 academic year, over 880,000 students—including those domiciled in the European Union (EU) and overseas—were studying full-time for a first degree in the United Kingdom, and a further 184,000 were studying part-time. An additional 111,000 students were studying full-time in higher education for undergraduate qualifications below degree level, such as foundation degrees, diplomas and professional qualifications—while a further 390,000 were studying these part-time.
Using an index called the Higher Education Initial Participation Rate (HEIPR), the U.K. Government measures participation rates for English-domiciled first-time participants in higher education courses at U.K. higher education institutions as well as English, Welsh and Scottish