Education
In Liverpool primary and secondary education is available in various forms supported by the state including secular, Church of England, Jewish, and Roman Catholic. Islamic education is available at primary level, but there is currently no secondary provision.
One of Liverpool's important early schools was The Liverpool Blue Coat School; founded in 1708 as a charitable school, it continues today and is the top-performing boys school in the city. The Belvedere School is the leading school in the city and will be changing its status, becoming a City Academy, in September, 2007. Other notable schools include Liverpool College founded in 1840 and Merchant Taylors' School. Another of Liverpool's notable senior schools is St. Edward's College, a former private high school located in West Derby. Historic grammar schools, such as the Liverpool Institute High School & Liverpool Collegiate, closed in the 1980s are still remembered as centres of academic excellence.
Liverpool has three universities, the University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool Hope University and Edge Hill University, originally founded as a teacher-training college in the Edge Hill district of Liverpool, is now located in Ormskirk in South-West Lancashire.
The University of Liverpool was established in 1881 as University College Liverpool. In 1884, it became part of the federal Victoria University. Following a Royal Charter and Act of Parliament in 1903, it became an independent university, the University of Liverpool, with the right to confer its own degrees.
Liverpool Hope University, founded in 1844, is situated on both sides of Taggart Avenue in Childwall and a second Campus in the City Centre (The Cornerstone). Hope is quickly making a name for itself within the Liberal Arts, the University has also enjoyed successes in terms of high graduate employability, campus development, and a substantial increase in student applications from outside of the City.
The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, founded to address some of the problems created by trade, continues today as a post-graduate school in the University of Liverpool and is one of only two institutions internationally that house the de facto standard anti-venom repository.
Liverpool John Moores University was previously a polytechnic, and gained university status in 1992. It is named in honour of Sir John Moores, one of the founders of the Littlewoods football pools and retail group, who was a major benefactor. The institution was previously owned and run by Liverpool City Council.
The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts was set up by Sir Paul McCartney in 1996, to train artistes and technicians. It is situated in the building which formerly housed the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys and is affiliated with Liverpool John Moores University. LIPA is actively pursuing degree-awarding status in its own right (although as of January 2007 this has not been officially announced), and is moving towards becoming an independent higher education instution.
The city has one further education college, Liverpool Community College. The college will recruit around 21,000 students in the academic year 2006/07.
There are two Jewish schools in Liverpool, both belonging to the King David Foundation. King David School, Liverpool is the High School, located on Childwall Road, close to Childwall Comprehensive and Childwall Fiveways. The King David Primary School is situated at Beauclair Drive. There is also a King David Kindergarten, featured in the community centre of Harold House. These schools are all run by the King David Foundation based in Harold House in Childwall; conveniently next door to the Childwall Synagogue