Below you’ll find our briefing on the major differences between UK and US education systems, including information on the national curriculum, grading and examinations, as well as links to additional resources.
Primary and Secondary (K-12) Education
More than 90% of students in the UK attend publicly-funded state schools. Approximately 8.5 million children attend one of the 30,000 schools in England and Wales; in Scotland, 830,000 children attend about 5,000 schools, including pre-schools and other special education schools; and Northern Ireland sends 350,000 children to 1,300 state schools. Primary schools usually include both girls and boys as pupils. Secondary schools may be either single-sex or co-educational.
Education departments in England, Scotland and Wales fund schools through a Local Education Authority (or Education Authority in Scotland). In Northern Ireland, schools are largely financed from public funds through five Education and Library Boards.
National Curriculum in England, Wales and Northern Ireland
By law, all children in England and Wales between ages 5 and 16 must receive a full-time education, while in Northern Ireland, children must begin at age 4. For children under age 5, publicly-funded nurseries and pre-schools are available for a limited number of hours each week. After the age of 16, students can attend sixth form colleges or other further education institutions. Both options offer general education courses in addition to more specific vocational or applied subjects.
The UK introduced a National Curriculum in 1992 and state schools are required to adhere to it until students reach age 16. The Education and Skills Act of 2008 raised the compulsory age to 18, effective in 2013 for 17 year-olds and in 2015 for 18 year-olds. (Independent schools are not obliged to adhere to the National Curriculum.)
National Curriculum core subjects are: English (Welsh is also a core subject in Welsh-speaking schools), mathematics, science, design and technology, information and communication technology, history, geography, modern foreign ********s, music, art and design, physical education, and citizenship. In addition to these core subjects are a number of other compulsory courses, such as religious education.
Northern Ireland follows a similar framework; however, schools can develop additional curriculum elements to express their particular ethos and meet pupils' individual needs and circumstances. The curriculum also includes the Irish ******** in Irish-speaking schools.
After five years of secondary education, students take examinations in a range of subjects at the level of General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE). The GCSE is a single-subject examination set and marked by independent examination boards. Students usually take up to ten (there is no upper or lower limit) GCSE examinations in different subjects, including mathematics and English ********.
After taking GCSEs, students may leave secondary schooling; alternatively, they may choose to continue their education at vocational or technical colleges, or they may take a higher level of secondary school examinations known as AS-Levels after an additional year of study. Following two years of study, students may take A-Level (short for Advanced Level) examinations, which are required for university entrance in the UK.
Scotland
Scotland has its own qualification framework that is separate from that in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. After seven years of primary education and four years of compulsory secondary education, students aged 15 to 16 may take the Scottish Certificate of Education (SCE). The Scottish Certificate of Education is recognized throughout the UK as the *****alent to GCE A-levels and is usually the entry qualification for university.
For more information about Scotland’s education system, visit Learning and Teaching in Scotland or EducationUK Scotland for information about higher education.
Grades and Transcripts
The American concept of a school transcript is unfamiliar in the UK. Schools in the UK do not generally rank pupils within their year; currently, the principal standards are the GCSE, SCE and AS and A-Level examination results.
There is no official method of equating British and American primary and secondary educational qualifications. The educational systems are entirely different and attempts to compare them must be done on a strictly provisional basis.
For more information on English examinations, please visit the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance, which is the largest of the three English examination bodies. For information on Northern Ireland’s examination policy, please visit the Council on Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment, or for more about Scotland’s grading procedures, you can review the Scottish Qualifications Authority’s website.
Post-secondary and Higher Education
Approximately 1.8 million students are currently enrolled in the UK higher education system; about one third of young people go on to higher education at age 18 (with almost 50% of students in Scotland), and an increasing number of "mature" students are studying either full-time or part-time for university degrees.
Undergraduate degrees take three years to complete in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, while at Scottish universities they last four years. At the graduate level, a master's degree is normally earned in a single year, a research master's degree takes two years and a doctoral degree is often completed in three years.
Professional courses, such as medicine, veterinary medicine, law and teaching, usually are undertaken as five-year undergraduate degrees.
To learn more about opportunities to study abroad or earn an undergraduate or graduate degree in the UK, please visit our Study in the UK page.
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