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Great Britain is known as a country with impeccable quality of educa tion. It is the founder of a multi-stage educational model, which is now widely used in many countries of the world and is fairly considered to be British. Specialists who received diplomas in higher educational institu tions of the country are highly rated on the world labour market. 
Higher education in Great Britain has a long and distinctive history. The system of higher education in the UK includes universities, colleges of higher education and advanced courses in the further education. There are the following main types of universities in Great Britain: Old universities, Redbrick universities, New universities and Open University.
The two oldest universities in England – Oxford and Cambridge (often called collectively Oxbridge) – refer to the first group called Old universi ties. They were founded in 12th and 13th centuries accordingly and known as «intellectual eyes» of Great Britain. Each university is a federation of colleges which are largely independent. The have its own staff of teachers, a separate building, and its own financing and individual curricula. The college organizes term exams, but university is responsible for final exams and awarding degrees to college students.
A unique Oxbridge benefit to students is the tutorial system. It was established in the 1800s in the United Kingdom and is still practised today. The undergraduate students are taught by college fellows (or some times doctoral students and post-docs) in groups of one to three on a weekly basis. These sessions are the central method of teaching at Oxbridge. The student is required to undertake preparatory work for each tutorial: for example, reading, essays or working through problems, depending on their subject. Other teaching sessions such as lectures, practicals and language classes are offered, but these are in addition to the compulsory tutorials. 
The Scottish universities of Edinburgh, St. Andrews, Glasgow date from the 15th and 16th centuries and belong to the Old universities as well.
In the nineteenth and the early part of the twentieth centuries the so-called Redbrick universities were founded. They got this name as the red brick was the favorable building material of that time. Six of the original redbrick institutions (Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, Bristol and Birmingham) gained university status before World War I and were initially established as civic science or engineering colleges. How ever, with the 1960s proliferation of universities and the reclassification of polytechnics in the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 as post – 1992 universities, all British universities founded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in major cities are now sometimes referred to as «red brick». Among them are Queen’s University Belfast, University of Hull, University of Reading in England and many others. 
The universities established after the World War II are known as New universities because of their modern approach to university courses. They are in Staffordshire, Kent, Essex, Lancaster, Sussex, York and were built as a result of Industrial Revolution. After World War II the UK began to develop industries very quickly. British plants and factories needed a lot of qualified specialists. That’s why a number of New Universities appeared in large industrial cities.
The Open University (OU), established in 1969, is the United Kingdom’s distance learning government-supported university notable for having an open entry policy. The majority of students are based in the UK, but its long-distance and online capabilities allow students to matriculate from around the world. The university awards undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, as well as non-degree qualifications such as diplomas and certificates, or continuing education units. 
The outstanding alumni of the UK universities: Isaac Newton, English mathematician and physicist, Alan Turing, an English mathematician and computer scientist (Cambridge); Edwin Hubble, an American astronomer, founder of theoretical principles of Hubble Telescope operation, Indira Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India, Tim Berners-Lee, an English computer scientist, inventor of the World Wide Web (Oxford); Alexander Bell, a Scottish scientist and engineer, inventor of telephone, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a British writer and physician (University of Edinburgh); Brian May, an English musician, singer, the lead guitarist of the rock band Queen; Nelson Mandela, a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader, and philanthropist (University of London) and many others. 
Some prestigious British universities are also members of the Russell Group of UK research universities.The Russell Group is a self-selected association of twenty-four public research universities in the United Kingdom. The group is headquartered in Cambridge and was established in 1994 to represent its members’ interests, principally to government and Parliament. It was incorporated in 2007. Its members are often perceived as the UK’s most prestigious universities.