{"id":21393,"date":"2022-06-15T15:10:19","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T14:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=21393"},"modified":"2022-06-15T15:10:19","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T14:10:19","slug":"times-education-commission-demonstrates-need-for-flexible-lifelong-learning-says-the-open-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/around-ou\/ou-speaks-out\/times-education-commission-demonstrates-need-for-flexible-lifelong-learning-says-the-open-university\/","title":{"rendered":"Times Education Commission &#8220;demonstrates need for flexible lifelong learning&#8221; says The Open University"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Open University has welcomed the publication today of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.co.uk\/article\/times-education-commission-report-welcomed-by-tony-blair-john-major-qwc3b7ktx\">Times Education Commission\u2019s final report<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Commenting on the report, Professor Tim Blackman, Vice-Chancellor of The Open University, said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201c<em>This is a vital piece of work that highlights the challenges faced across the education system and the importance of bringing forward solutions to tackle these systemic issues.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cWe welcome the report and the Government\u2019s commitment to flexible lifelong learning. As an institution that has supported over two million people access higher education, we know the lifechanging impact that education has and the economic and social benefits that it brings.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThe Commission is right to identify the need to both strengthen further education and address higher education \u2018cold spots\u2019. We are proud to be playing our part in addressing this critical levelling-up issue in partnership with the Office for Students by supporting further education colleges expand their higher education offer<\/em>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The OU hosted a visit from the Commission\u2019s Chair, Rachel Sylvester, with student Susan Percy, who left school at 15 and then returned to study at the OU at the age of 59, featuring in the Commission\u2019s report saying:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cThey had to teach me times tables to start with, which was quite embarrassing, but I did it and I got a distinction.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cI thought it\u2019s years since I\u2019ve felt like this, and it gave me a buzz. Now I\u2019m on to the last year of my sociology degree. You can start again. I think it\u2019s about confidence because up until coming here my confidence was on the floor. It brought me out of my shell. I feel like I belong somewhere, and I haven\u2019t felt that for many years. It\u2019s like I\u2019ve gone back to being 18.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Open University has welcomed the publication today of the Times Education Commission\u2019s final report. Commenting on the report, Professor Tim Blackman, Vice-Chancellor of The Open University, said: \u201cThis is a vital piece of work that highlights the challenges faced across the education system and the importance of bringing forward solutions to tackle these systemic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15695,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1525,1640],"class_list":["post-21393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ou-speaks-out","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}