British Universities: International Students' Alleged Lack of Critical Thinking

This paper investigates British academics' perception of international students' alleged lack of critical thinking and poor writing performance. This research is relevant to those students and academics expected to demonstrate competences required for acceptance in the English speaking academic environment. The aim of this paper is to investigate in detail those factors that make British academics devalue academic material written in English as a second language. Using literature review and literature analysis as research methods, the authors present a detailed summary of problems associated with international students' performance in the UK universities and conclude with a set of practical recommendations for Russian speaking students and academics

UK Universities: Choosing the Right Partner

This paper offers an overview of British universities from the perspective of a prospective international student or educational manager looking for international collaboration. The authors explain criteria used to rank UK universities in University League Table 2015. They give an overview of specific terminology and jargon associated with British higher education explaining terms such as Oxbridge, Russell Group universities, Red brick universities, Scottish MA etc

British National Health Service: Wellbeing of Older Patients

The aim of this paper is to inform the readers of the latest developments in the British National Health Service relevant to the wellbeing of older people. In Britain, the wellbeing of the elderly is addressed from a wide range of perspectives, independence being one of the dominant themes underlying the efforts of medical and social services. Thorough and systematic investigation of older people's needs is another important theme together with the understanding of the importance of end-of-life care that should be sensitive and responsive to the dying person's wishes. As the issues of assisted living, day care, long-term care, residential care, home care and hospice care involve many processes and many different professionals, this discussion may be useful for researchers and social workers involved in the development of social/research programs aimed at promoting the wellbeing of older people. The readers will be able to evaluate and reflect on relevant British legislation and practices involved in the care of elderly patients

Young People in Britain: Alternatives to Higher Education

In Britain, the wellbeing of young people is often linked to the education they receive, and going to university in order to obtain an undergraduate degree is seen as a necessary and desirable step in life, which should secure their employability and financial future. However, high university fees and student accommodation and subsistence costs are not normally covered by government grants anymore, so a young graduate is destined to begin his or her professional life with tens of thousands of pounds of student debt, which he or she is expected to pay over three decades of their working life. Although the demand for university places remains as high as ever, it becomes questionable in some situations, whether pursuing a university education at all cost is, in fact, beneficial for a young person and his or her future. This paper explores an alternative path for a young person's successful career - apprenticeship and traineeship, giving a detailed account of a registered gas engineer training route as an example

Criteria of the Efficiency of Symbolic Attributes of Power in the World Wide Web

The work is devoted to the thesis that modern communication channels can be used for the increase of political influence due to the fact that the Internet has obviously been gaining power and is widely used and adopted. It supports the idea that no politician or public figure can hope to exist efficiently without using available Internet resources and maintaining personal sites or blogs for the sake of popularity and awareness. The criteria for the efficiency of symbolic attributes of power in the Internet are considered and selected for the analysis of different kinds of Internet resources used by politicians and political organizations in Tomsk and Tomsk region to. The work reveals how efficiently the personal or public blogs are used and whether they serve the real tool for the communication between the power and the public or they are basically formal and simply exist as a fashionable trend. It is shown that Internet channels are important and can increase efficiency of the communication between the authorities and citizens

Engineering ethics and the future

Responding to the demands of the technology-driven global economy, engineers increase their technical competencies, improve cross-cultural communication skills, and become more innovative, entrepreneurial and flexible (Continental, 2006). As the demands on the engineer are increasing and the role of an engineer evolves and becomes more prominent, the importance of teaching engineering ethics to engineering students is increasing too. This article investigates current trends in the teaching of engineering ethics in the context of diverse approaches to evaluating the responsibility of an engineer. The article reveals the complexity of the issue, which confirms the need for future engineers to be competent in dealing with ethical dilemmas. The engineer must be aware of the fact that his or her invention will initiate a chain of events that will involve the use of this invention and will have various social, environmental and legal ramifications, which should be taken into account. The engineer must also be sufficiently prepared to make ethical decisions without sufficient guidance, as the full range of possible future scenarios cannot be foreseen

Communicative Competence Management Approaches in Higher Education

In the context of lifelong learning it is necessary to train a person who will be able to get oriented appropriately in all spheres of social life and actively influence them, without which it is impossible to proceed to the educational community with a high level of spiritual, legal and professional culture. Not only the expertise but also the general communication skills in the professional activity of a specialist become important. Communicative component is now represented fragmentarily in the content of Russian higher education, while the necessity in its expansion and the constitution is growing as communicative education is becoming an important means of the formation of professionalism and if to look more broadly, a way to transform our social realities. Search for the mechanisms to manage communicative competence of students is an important task in the development of higher education. The solution to this problem will increase the efficiency of training of future specialists in the period of active development of new communication technologies and create the conditions for successful professional and personal fulfillment. The research presented in the paper is based on the hypothesis that the formation of communicative competence of university students is determined by the interconnectedness of competencies which make up the structure of communicative competence through the sequencing of the stages of development of communicative competence and determination of the algorithm of formation of communicative competence in higher education