{"id":1103,"date":"2011-02-25T16:20:46","date_gmt":"2011-02-25T15:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/?p=1103"},"modified":"2012-07-10T11:55:30","modified_gmt":"2012-07-10T10:55:30","slug":"the-coalition-believes-in-a-big-strong-and-effective-higher-education-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/?p=1103","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;The Coalition believes in a big, strong and effective higher education sector&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking to the Universities UK Spring Conference <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bis.gov.uk\/news\/speeches\/david-willetts-uuk-spring-conference-2011\" onclick=\"javascript:urchinTracker ('\/outbound\/article\/www.bis.gov.uk');\">David Willetts<\/a>, Minister of State for Universities and Science, quoted above, made a few general points regarding his vision. He wants to\u00a0give students &#8216;better value and greater choice&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0He noted that \u2018the growth of higher education in England between 1850 and 1950\u2019 was based on local colleges which taught students for existing degrees at the University of London and elsewhere. This system meant that \u2018students at new institutions could obtain degrees or other qualifications from prestigious and well understood institutions\u2019. He went on<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The external degrees of the University of London are now largely for foreign students. They should, once again, be widely available across Britain.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This was the model rejected by Jennie Lee when the design for the OU was being discussed. \u00a0While the current Minister may have considered Jennie Lee\u2019s rationale and rejected it he does not refer to this route to his conclusions.<\/p>\n<p>He argued that \u2018We are committed to improving social mobility and we recognise that better access to higher education is one of the most effective ways to do that.\u2019 However, his method was not to focus on learning. Instead he talks of putting \u2018the quality of teaching where it should be \u2013 at the heart of the system\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>The government has distinctive ideas regarding the development of the\u00a0HE sector. But will it draw on the most useful historical analogies and models and the best research? For a different view of this speech see Doug&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/dougclow.wordpress.com\/\" onclick=\"javascript:urchinTracker ('\/outbound\/article\/dougclow.wordpress.com');\">blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking to the Universities UK Spring Conference David Willetts, Minister of State for Universities and Science, quoted above, made a few general points regarding his vision. He wants to\u00a0give students &#8216;better value and greater choice&#8217;. \u00a0He noted that \u2018the growth of higher education in England between 1850 and 1950\u2019 was based on local colleges which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[163],"class_list":["post-1103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ideas","tag-david-willetts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1103"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2396,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103\/revisions\/2396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}