{"id":420,"date":"2010-07-15T16:43:06","date_gmt":"2010-07-15T15:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/?p=420"},"modified":"2010-07-15T22:16:34","modified_gmt":"2010-07-15T21:16:34","slug":"vince-cable-on-the-ou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/?p=420","title":{"rendered":"Vince Cable on the OU"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On 15th July 2010, former Labour councillor and economics lecturer at Glasgow University,\u00a0Vince Cable MP who was, according to his autobiography (‘Free Radical \u2013 A Memoir’)\u00a0\u00a0‘one of the first generation of Open University tutors” made his ‘first attempt to set out my views on the university, and wider, HE sector and my aspirations for it’ (see here<\/a>). In regard to The\u00a0Open University, which he called ‘a world leader in distance learning’, the\u00a0\u00a0Business Secretary in the\u00a0 Department for Business, Innovation and Skills proposed that more students could be encouraged to save money by staying at home and studying for university degrees externally, along the lines of Open University courses. This reflects a different view\u00a0in regard to\u00a0the roles and focus of the OU\u00a0than those set out by many of the original proponents of a University of the Air. Dr Cable, a Liberal when an undergraduate and an early member\u00a0of \u00a0the SDP in the 1980s, now appears to echo some of the ideas\u00a0expressed by Education Secretary in the early 1970s.\u00a0Margatet Thatcher. Taking office soon after the OU was opened she\u00a0came to the view that an important benefit of the\u00a0OU was that it was relatively inexpensive. She wanted it to\u00a0run a\u00a0 pilot scheme for 18-year olds which would place it in direct competition with other universities who sought to attract that age group. The OU now welcomes 18 year olds and it appears as if the Coalition government might like to see more of them seeking places, but\u00a040 or so years ago\u00a0the idea of them starting to study with the OU was novel and worried many people.<\/p>\n

We hope that this blog will encourage people to analyse\u00a0how the\u00a0OU has changed, consider the various\u00a0functions people have\u00a0envisaged for it and help us understand its present and its future as well as its past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 15th July 2010, former Labour councillor and economics lecturer at Glasgow University,\u00a0Vince Cable MP who was, according to his autobiography (‘Free Radical \u2013 A Memoir’)\u00a0\u00a0‘one of the first generation of Open University tutors” made his ‘first attempt to set out my views on the university, and wider, HE sector and my aspirations for it’ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,67],"tags":[117,116],"class_list":["post-420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ideas","category-methods-history-of-the-ou","tag-distance-education","tag-vince-cable"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420","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=420"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":424,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions\/424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=420"}],"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=420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}