History of the OU

On 10th October, 2011 Michael Drake, the OU’s first Dean of Social Sciences, gave a talk in the Milton Keynes Village Hall to the Two Villages Archive Trust about on ‘The OU and me’. He employed the metaphor of industrialisation to describe the impact of the OU. This echoed a phrase that he had employed in 1972 when Michael Drake argued that the Open University was ‘the industrial revolution of higher education’ (M Drake, ‘The Open University concept’, Studies. An Irish Quarterly Review, Summer 1972, LXI no 242, p. 158).  (more…)

The OU is one of over 800 universities with active iTunes U sites. Go here for beginner’s French for example and here for a podcast about air pollution.  This technology was developed by the company that was co-founded by Steve Jobs, Apple. He died on 5th October, aged 56. Many tributes have been paid.

On 29th September in her inaugural lecture as visiting professor at The Open University Law School Cherie Booth QC described how education transformed her own life. A co-founder of her own chambers who sits as a judge she has supported the OU’s Law School since its launch (which she attended in 1997) and she praised the OU’s commitment to extending the gifts and opportunities of learning. Echoing some of the founders of the OU she suggested that ‘What makes the OU particularly special is that it is not just distinctive in this country but it has pioneered new ways of teaching across the world without compromising quality’. In her lecture she argued that law is vital in the providing equality for women throughout the world and building a better society for all. You can watch her lecture here.

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…)

At the opening of the OU in 1969 the new Chancellor spoke of it being open to everybody, regardless of qualifications. This disrupted the assumption that only those with suitable formal qualifications were suitable for higher education. It reflected the OU’s culture as emerging from part-time adult education, correspondence courses and Univerisity Extension in the nineteenth century, as well as in the post-war expansion of HE. It now appears that other universities operate a system of entry not simply based on formal assessment. However, these universities have not adopted the ethos of openness espoused by the OU.  Research by the Sutton Trust (a charity) suggests that five schools send more students to Oxbridge than 2,000 other schools. There was a report on this by the BBC.  In terms of its historical committment to being open the OU remains distinctive.

According to Cherwell, 177 dons have no confidence in the Universities Minister, David Willets,  Jonathan Black, the director of a careers service and Fellow of New College, Oxford sees this as a wider lack of confidence in the government.  Elsewhere there is a lack of confidence in changes which are being made to universities. Although she is against charging higher tuition fees Valérie Pécresse, the minister for higher education and research of France has still succeeded in provoking professors and students to take to the streets (in both 2007 and 2009) and demand her resignation. She has argued for 15 big universities across the country. This has echoes of an idea associated with former Open University VC John Daniel, who coined the word mega-university (see Daniel, John S (1996) Mega-universities and Knowledge Media: Technology Strategies for Higher Education, Kogan Page, London). He, however, looked to the past, noting that Walter Perry ‘did more than anyone to build the foundations for today’s mega-universities. It is largely because of him that we can use the word ‘mega’ about these institutions’. Perhaps if Ministers better understood the evolution of the OU then academics would have more faith in their pronouncements about the best way forwards.

2011 marks the conclusion of the first two decades of an European association for distance learning open to institutions and individuals. This not-for-profit company, EDEN, the European Distance and E-learning Network, is interested in formal and non-formal education and training at all levels. It holds conferences, supports the European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning and provides support and advice for a range of projects. It has close associations with the OU, for example Alan Tait is a former President and former VC, Sitr John Daniel is to address the EDEN annual conference in June 2011.  For more on ‘this other Eden, demi-paradise’, as Shakespeare almost called it and for information about the forthcoming conference click here.

 That is how AHRC Council member Rick Trainor described the Economic History Society session on ‘The Big Society’. In recent days there has been much debate about the role of the AHRC in regard to The Big Society. In regard to this matter there are comments and further links available via the Times Higher and the New Statesman and there is an account by James Sumner. The academic conference debate attended by Professor Trainor was was an example of academics coming together to assess the idea within a historical context.  The government might not frame its social, educational and economic policies in the light of the ideas constructed and contested by academics but it now has to option to consider their views and analysis.

Hilary Perraton was closely involved with the National Extension College, NEC, a precusor of the OU, from 1964 until 1971. He promoted the idea that a multi-media teaching programme is likely to be more effective than one which relies on a single medium. He went on to become a Co-Director of the International Extension College, a non-profit consultative organization on distance teaching and to work at the Commonwealth Secretariat, at the International Research Foundation for Open Learning and to chair the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission.  (more…)

In the May 1985 DES Green Paper The Development of Higher Education into the 1990s (HMSO, London, Cmd 9524) the OU was the only named institution which received any favourable comments, being seen as the major provider of part-time degrees. There are now far more part-time students, four in ten undergraduates, but they still tend to be marginalised. The OU remains a significant provider and in order for concerns about the needs of those who work and study to reach the appropriate Parliamentary ears it fell to Vice-Chancellor Martin Bean to present the case for part-time learners to the Education Bill Committee in the Commons in March 2011.

The session can be viewed here. The OU’s session can be found between 1 hour 30 minutes and 2 hours 14 minutes.