History of the OU

It was 41 years ago that Iain Macleod the Chancellor of the Exchequer died. The death occurred at 11.35pm on 20 July 1970 while he was in 11 Downing Street and, according to Patricia Hollis p. 339, while the papers which would enable him to close the OU were on his desk. Macleod is credited with the view that the OU was ‘blithering nonsense’  (Daily Telegraph, 17 February, 1969). The first Dean of Arts at the OU, John Ferguson, said that Macleod’s view of the OU was that he was

rigorously and almost fanatically against it… had declared publicly that if the thing were set up, his party would abolish it… There is no doubt that Macleod’s sudden death, lamentable for national leadership in other ways, eased the University’s infancy (Ferguson, The Open University from within, pp. 13, 26).

Although Macleod’s last testament ‘acquired a special sanctity from the untimely death of its author’, Thatcher, motivated according to George Gardiner, by ‘her strong belief in giving educational opportunity to those prepared to work for it’, kept the OU. (more…)

The UCU (University and College Union) recently commissioned a report, Universities at risk. The impact of cuts in higher education spending on local economies, which concluded that across England, 49 universities were at risk of closure and that, of all the pre-92 universities, the OU is most at risk. It features in the list of 22 HEIs at ‘high medium’ level of potential impact from the proposals made in the Browne Review (2010), Securing a sustainable future for higher education. This means that the OU has at least eight of the maximum of 12 ‘risk’ points. A recent survey of university leaders revealed that nine out of ten expect an institution to close due to financial pressures. The OU has faced the possibility of closure before. In the past it rallied students and staff to defend it. (more…)

In October 1970 Ted Short (a former Labour Minister) argued in Education & Training (12, 10, October 1970) that the new Tory government had changed the OU because Thatcher ‘succumbed to Treasury pressure’ and that as a result ‘We now have the Not-Quite-So-Open University.’ While the government had not changed the total number of places at the OU it had sought to allow 18 year olds to study there, (it had previously been open only to those aged at least 21) and it had sought to increase ‘the contribution it can make to the general provision’. He concluded:

one of the most imaginative concepts of the Labour government will be used for a purpose for which it was never intended. Goodbye second chance for thousands who missed out early in life.

In December (Education & Training 12, 12) Short noted that while 25,000 students were to be admitted in 1971, as Labour had planned, a cap of 40,00 was placed on the numbers of 1973 and also the grant was fixed in order to encourage the OU to reduce its unit costs ‘which can only be done by lowering the quality of its service’. The journal in which he wrote also commented on the attitude of the new government. In December 1970 Education & Training (12, 12) editorialised about the OU:

This paper has been more critical than most of the way the original concept has been narrowed down. For some time at least it will educate the already educated, rather than the deprived for whom it was intended. That Mrs Thatcher [Conservative Education Minister] accedes to this dilution is regrettable but surprising… The Minister’s thinking on the Open University is akin to her thinking on school meals – to him that hath it shall be given… The tragedy is that there is a need for a Ministerial initiative, opposite to the one the Secretary of State has chosen to take. With its present biased intake of teachers and housewives, there is a need to correct some of its pretensions. A need to put the idea over to working people that at last there is an educational opportunity for them, that they may take as far as they like. Otherwise Jenny Lee’s Grand Design will fail and the Open University sink to becoming the ACE [Advisory Centre for Education, a charity] of the goggle box.

I was at an OU Graduation Ceremony at the Barbican a couple of weeks ago. In his address the Chancellor, Lord Puttnam, spoke briefly about the origins of the University, and in addition to the usual mention of Harold Wilson and Jennie Lee, paid tribute to Margaret Thatcher, who turned out to be a powerful supporter. Walter Perry, in his book “The Open University” recalls a meal with her: She suggested first that our main activity would be to offer courses on ‘hobbies’. I fear that I needle very easily [...] The exchanges were sharp, short and furious. I am happy to say that , in spite of it all, we ended on a friendly note. [...] When she became Minister of Education after the Tory victory in 1970 we had reason to be glad of that dinner.

Was former OU Tutor, and former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown more sympathetic to the OU?

With a new government in place, promising cuts in public spending, there may be some sense of deja vu at the OU.

Forty years ago, with the University created by a Labour government but no students yet studying, the election of Ted Heath’s Tory government posed a real threat to the newly formed institution. William van Straubenzee, appointed as junior minister for higher education, reported ‘I would have slit its throat if I could.’ He blamed the outgoing Labour education minister Ted Short for some ‘nifty, last-moment work with the charter that made the OU unkillable’. Student numbers were cut but the University survived.

Nine years later, another Conservative government, this time led by Margaret Thatcher, caused more problems for the OU. In 1980 the University had to cut expenditure by £3.5 million, nine per cent of its 1979 expenditure and the government effectively imposed a 46 per cent increase in the undergraduate tuition fee. Again the University survived, as no doubt it will again, whatever the new government chooses to throw at it.