All Education to the People: The Open University

Abstract

Open University (OU) is a large, government-supported university program enrolling over 42,000 fulland part-time students throughout the United Kingdom. It has an operating budget of $25 million and offers bachelor's degrees (and honors B.A.'s1) in the humanities, technology, science, and education. If that description brings forth an image of a large state college, dismiss it, for in most respects OU is unique. It represents a major effort to provide quality education through home study, to people who find it difficult, for whatever reasons, to attend a more traditional school. Initially proposed by the Labor party in 1963, Open University is in its fifth year of academic operation. In order to fulfill its task, without viable precedents to fall back on, OU has had to develop a significant number of innovative approaches. Although it is still evolving and refining both its curriculum and methodology, OU's successes and failures to date can serve as guidelines in expanding or changing educational programs at any institution sincerely concerned with reaching people. The only qualifications one needs for admission to OU are to be at least 21 years of age and a resident of the United Kingdom.2 Open admission is not a novel concept, but OU's attempt, and intent, to resolve some of the difficulties prospective students might have had in traditional educational settings are. In order to have true open admissions it must be equally easy for a prisoner in Dartmoor, a housewife in London, and a lighthouse keeper on the Shetland Islands to enroll. OU comes close to this ideal by being a correspondence school with all of the United Kingdom as its