Hey everyone and welcome to the Understandable English Podcast.
I hope that I will have succeeded to put this episode up on Tuesday.
Today has been one of those days where I just felt very tired and it was so hard to actually make something, to sit down and focus.
At this point, I have been in almost a full lockdown for about six weeks, almost two months.
I don't know how the situation with coronavirus is in your country, but here the situation is getting worse once again.
We have more cases of coronavirus each day than there was back in April.
But Today I'm not going to talk about coronavirus.
You will probably be glad to hear that.
To be entirely honest, I'm really sick of hearing and talking about coronavirus.
I can't wait until it is all a distant memory, a memory in the past, where we will just look back and say oh, do you remember the coronavirus?
That was a really awful time.
So today we are going to talk about life in the UK. more particularly education.
I received a wonderful question from a follower on Instagram and a listener of this podcast.
They asked me, what are the differences between life in the UK and life in Russia?
This is a very difficult question to answer.
For a start, because I didn't grow up in Russia, I've only lived in Russia for one year.
And my experience of living in Russia will be very different from the life of a local, of someone who has grown up and lived in society there.
But I think one of the ways that I can show you the difference is just by talking about life in the uk, about different aspects of life, such as education religion culture, etc.
As a whole, life in the uk is very good, but it isn't perfect, And I don't want people to think that the UK is some magical place with a perfect quality of life and that it is the best country in the world or something like that.
Because we still have lots of problems here.
In terms of wealth, in terms of money, the UK is actually the most divided country in Western Europe.
There are a lot of poor people here and a lot of rich people.
But the gap, the difference between the rich and the poor is very big.
I know that this is also a problem in Russia. but here it is definitely still a problem.
However, in general, the quality of life in the UK is very high compared to most of the world.
Unemployment, which means people that don't have jobs is very low.
The rate of unemployment is very low.
Poverty is also very low in comparison to many other countries.
And one important thing is that women's equality, so rights for women and the place of women in society, is very good.
The UK ranks very highly in this.
Of course, there are always improvements to be made and it definitely isn't perfect, but compared to many countries i've been to, the place of woman in society is much better here, and i very much notice that when i travel abroad and how people talk about women and relate to them is very different, Whereas here it is definitely a lot more equal in that regard.
One thing I would say is that it is very expensive to live in the UK.
Most people know this.
Russia is a lot cheaper to live in.
But it does depend on the location.
London, for example, is very expensive in most areas.
So is Edinburgh in Scotland where I currently live.
However, my home region of Northern Ireland is quite cheap.
It is the cheapest place in the UK.
Although one strange thing I noticed when I went to Russia is that items such as clothing and even technology was much more expensive in Russia than in the UK.
This was quite surprising to me.
I didn't expect it.
I also find that healthy food such as fruit and vegetables were a lot more expensive in St.
Petersburg in Russia than in my hometown and Edinburgh in the UK.
However, on the other hand, unhealthy food such as fast food, chocolate and those sort of items were much much, much cheaper in Russia than in the UK.
Sometimes four or five times cheaper.
I think the reason for this is that here in the UK there are many laws surrounding unhealthy food.
Many laws related to unhealthy food and drinks.
These laws make taxes.
The taxes are on unhealthy food and drinks, which means that people have to pay more for them.
The point of this is to discourage people, to make people not want to buy these products because it's bad for them.
It is the same with alcohol and cigarettes.
For example, a bottle of vodka in the UK might cost 15 pounds, or often a lot more, which is the equivalent of maybe 1500 rubles 1500 rubles.
Or a packet of cigarettes in the UK costs approximately 10 pounds, which is around 1000 rubles.
If I'm honest, I actually agree with this.
I think that since the price of cigarettes and alcohol has increased here, people tend to smoke a lot less.
I'm not sure about drink a lot less, because people still drink a lot, but in terms of cigarettes people definitely smoke so much less here because of the price.
And it actually stops people from starting to smoke altogether.
Smoking rates amongst young people are at an all-time low.
But anyway, I'm getting a little bit sidetracked.
This week's topic was meant to be education, but I have focused a little bit more on general prices and life.
So now for a little bit about education in the UK.
So here children start at nursery school.
Children go to nursery school at around the age of five, sort of four or five actually, it's probably more three or four.
So around the age of between three and four years old Children go to nursery school.
This is known as kindergarten in the United States of America.
However, in the UK we call it nursery school.
Their children make friends, they play and they learn basic things.
Then at the age of five or six, children go to primary school and this lasts for seven years.
Once the child reaches around 10 to 11 years old, they prepare for a set of big exams, examinations.
These exams determine, these exams decide which school they will go to, which secondary school.
Secondary schools are the next step in the education process.
I understand this speech might be a little bit more complicated because there are specific vocabulary.
There is specific vocabulary such as secondary education.
So, children sit these exams.
I personally don't think it is an amazing system because there is so much pressure on children at the age of 10 or 11 to do well in these exams.
And these exams have a huge effect on your future.
They essentially decide whether you go to a very good school or a bad school.
If you go to a good school, you're likely to go to university.
If you go to a bad school and you don't do well in the exams at 10 or 11, you are a lot less likely to do well and go to university.
I really don't think it is fair to almost decide a child's future at the age of 10 or 11, but that is part of the system here.
Then children go to this secondary education.
There they study until the age of 16.
And at 16, there are more exams.
These are called GCSEs.
That's not very important, but that's the name.
These exams determine.
These exams decide whether they get to continue on with another two years of school.
At this point, at the age of 16, they can decide if they want to just leave school and go and get a job or just do something else.
If you stay on at school, if you stay at school, You continue to study for two more years and then go to university.
Most children go to university at the age of 18 here.
University is usually three years in length in England, Northern Ireland and Wales.
However, in Scotland where I study, university usually lasts for four years.
My degree is four years.
And that is the basic overview of the education system.
You might need to listen to it a couple of times.
It isn't the most difficult, but sometimes it can be a little bit confusing because there are a lot of different sets of examinations.
However, it is worth noting, it is worth knowing that in each region of the UK, the education system is slightly different.
For example, in Northern Ireland, or in Scotland, or in Wales, or in England.
There will be slight differences between each.
The system is definitely not perfect, but it is still one of the best in the world.
And I do think that we have a very good education system.
However, I do have some problems with education in general.
What do you think about the education system?
One of the issues I have is that I think that education often measures the intelligence of children wrongly, incorrectly.
It rewards children who are good at taking orders, children that are good at memorizing things, remembering things.
Whereas I think there are many, many talented children, children that go on to create businesses or invent things or do amazing things, especially in the area of creativity.
And I really don't think that the current education system promotes that.
It is very much designed for one type of person when in reality, there are so many different types of people with so many different types of strengths.
Differences should be encouraged and the uniqueness of a child should really be developed and worked on, not discouraged.
I'd be really curious to hear what your opinion is on this.
As always, thank you so so much for listening to this podcast.
Please share it with any of your friends or family who you know are learning English too.
Once again, this week I've included the link to my new YouTube channel in the description.
I'm not sure if it's available there, but if you're listening on iTunes podcasts, the link should be there in the podcast description.
I hope you have a fantastic day.
I really enjoy making these podcasts and I'm so glad that you joined me to listen.
Have a wonderful day.
Goodbye.
