It was 1st October 1963. Having just outlined his plans for a University of the Air, which could he said, make a great contribution to the cultural life of the country and the enrichment of the standard of living, Harold Wilson received a standing ovation at the Labour Party\u2019s Scarborough conference. Next on the agenda was a motion on higher education and scientific manpower. It was moved by a union representative, Sir William Carron of the AEU and seconded by David Grugeon of the Socialist Education Association. Mr Grugeon appealed for an end to the present divisions in the educational system – an end to stratification, streaming, and selection. The educational opportunity must be provided for everybody to \u2018go as far as you can for as long as you can benefit\u2019.<\/p>\n
David Grugeon, who at the time was working with Michael Young and Brian Jackson to create the National Extension College (NEC), later recalled the context of how, soon after Wilson had announced his proposed ‘University of the Air’, the NEC merged with the University Correspondence College which enabled the fledging organisation to trial some of the delivery methods that the new university could employ. He then spoke at the conference:<\/p>\n
The following day The Guardian had my photo on the front page, with a quote from my speech: \u2018the comprehensive principle applies in higher education as well\u2019. The next month we ran Dawn University Week from the Cambridge Engineering Labs, with five weekday breakfast lectures at 7.15am (including Raymond Williams and Fred Hoyle), networked throughout the UK via Anglia TV. We also ran a lecture from Cambridge to first year students at the new University of East Anglia at Norwich, and a postgraduate seminar between Cambridge and Imperial College, London. One quarter of a million people viewed the broadcasts. I recruited friends to open the first 1000 applications for correspondence study. We also designed the first residential weekend courses to be held for NEC correspondence students at a hostel of Clare College Cambridge in January \u201964. Professor Roy Shaw of Keele University offered us facilities and staff for weeklong summer schools for London External Degree students in English and Maths from Summer \u201964 for students working on their own who had \u2018never met a tutor before\u2019. These were some of the seeds of a revolution leading to mass higher education that were planted in the early \u201860s by the combination of old and new technologies and the enthusiastic cooperation of people in old and new institutions. For a 24 year old I felt, along with Wordsworth: \u2018Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, and to be young was very heaven\u2019.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
David Grugeon is now a member of the Steering Group of the History Of The Open University Project .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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