The challenge of academic writing for Chinese students within ...

Historical overview of UK HE
Higher education in the UK is internationally renowned for its academic excellence in
learning, teaching and research. Britain enjoys the international fame of having two of the
oldest universities in the English-speaking world – the universities of Oxford and Cambridge,
dating back to twelfth century and thirteenth century respectively. As the representatives of
the ancient national university system 8 , Oxbridge 9 has considerably shaped the development
of the modern university system in Britain (Anderson, 2006). The prestige and superiority of
the universities of Oxford and Cambridge in British higher education system are indisputable.
Not only had these two universities dominated the higher education system in the past,
Oxbridge has also maintained its superiority in today‘s academic community nationally and
internationally. Oxbridge tops the latest Sunday Times University League Table (2008), and
are rated as two of the top 10 universities in the Shanghai Jiao Tong University world
university rankings (2008). With a history of helping secure the contemporary ‗religious,
political and social orthodoxy‘ of the 16 th century (Hugh, 1973, p.3), Oxbridge emphasized
the liberal arts education and stressed primarily the learning of philosophy and theology.
Today Oxbridge sustains its humanistic tradition with an infusion of research in the natural
and applied sciences (University of Oxford, 2008), boasting excellence in many humanities
and sciences subjects.
Alongside the ancient universities there are civic universities established in the industrial
cities of the late 19 th century including Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield
and Bristol. The civic universities, known as ‗big civics‘, represent high academic standards
(Holmes, 2001). Many of these civic universities originated from colleges and institutes set
up by local industrialists. With no intention of solely serving industries and commerce, these
colleges embraced a ‗dual mission‘ (Barnes, 1996, p.275) of committing to liberal education
and of promoting scientific research and technical instruction, and Richard B. Haldane‘s
vision of ‗civic universities‘ (he coined the term) supporting the co-existence of liberal
education and scientific research (Armytage, 1955; Barnes, 1996; Jones, 1988).
8 There are ancient universities in Scotland which date back to medieval Britain (1066 - 1485) and Tudor
England (1485 - 1603) including the universities of St. Andrews (1411), Glasgow (1451), Aberdeen (1495) and
Edinburgh (1583).
9 Oxbridge – to find definition from Oxford English Dictionary
44