History of the OU

The Times Higher 22/29 December 2011 reported on the recent ‘What have we learnt?’ conference, organised by the History of the Open University Project. It noted Malcolm Tight’s views about the lack of change in the social background of many students in the period since 1945. There are more female students and a larger percentage of mature students and students from ethnic minorities. However, the percentage of those from lower socio-economic backgrouynds had not shifted very much.

The OU opened in 1969, which makes it almost a chronological twin of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. The latter opened as the Negev Institute for Higher Education a few years earlier, had a few other antecedents, including roots in the Dimona nuclear research institute and became a university in 1969. Labour Party Prime Minister Harold Wilson promised that the Open University would support the spread of technology and in Israel it was an interest in science and technology that helped to drive the project to develop BGU. (more…)