Countdown to the OU 1 (1983) FOUF053S
(Narrator) The plans for The Open University were first outlined by...
..Harold Wilson at the 1963 Labour Party Conference in Scarborough.
Harold Wilson: And relevant also to these problems are our plans for a...
..University of the Air, is designed to provide an opportunity for those,
who for one reason or another, have not been able to take advantages...
..of higher education, now to do so; with all the TV and radio and the...
..state sponsored correspondence course and the facilities of...
..a university for setting and marking papers and conducting...
..examinations and awarding degrees, that all these things can provide.
(Narrator) When he became Prime Minister in 1964 few people believed that...
..a University of the Air was possible or even necessary...
..but he was determined to go ahead.