UKOU CELEBRATES 40 YEARS
The following is excerpted from “The Open University - 40 today, and a genius for our times” by the Rt. Hon. Peter Mandelson. Lord Mandelson is the U.K.’s Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and a former European Commissioner for Trade. Published by The Guardian, 24 June 2009.
The Labour prime minister Harold Wilson described the creation of the Open University in 1969 as the greatest achievement of his premiership. Four decades later, on the Open University’s 40th birthday, Wilson seems not only right, but right in ways he could not have imagined.
In 1969, when only five percent of Britons got a higher education and more than half of UK employees had no qualifications, the OU was a hugely innovative idea. It required no entry requirements. It welcomed part-time and mature students. It was “open”, and meant it.
It was the first step towards a genuine revolution in access to higher education in Britain. Over the last 40 years, more than two million people have studied through the OU. There are almost twice as many people enrolled in the OU this year as there were in the entire British higher education system in 1969.
But the blinding flash of inspiration at the heart of the OU lay in the way it challenged the idea of what a classroom was – learning didn’t always have to mean putting a teacher and a student physically in the same room.
The concept of distance learning, powered and supported by radio and television, was so revolutionary that a senior Conservative politician at the time called it “blithering nonsense”. Forty years later, powered by the Internet and online learning, it is an idea that has come so completely of age that it is easy to forget the trail the OU blazed.
Today, it is commonplace to find online interactive technologies used in learning. The huge and growing global market for education, driven by a young population in the developing world and an increasing commitment to lifelong learning in the developed world, has spurred universities and colleges into looking for ways to reach beyond their lecture halls and science labs. The OU has remained firmly at the forefront of these changes.
…The idea that inspired the founders of the OU will turn out to be fundamental to Britain’s economic prosperity in the 21st century. Not just the commitment to education as something that can and must be as widely accessible as possible. Not just the idea that it plays a key role not only early in life but throughout life. But also the idea that education is something flexible, something that people should be able to fit around jobs and geography.
These things were and are the genius of the OU. They are a lesson that Britain needs to keep on learning.
www.guardian.co.uk
WIKIEDUCATOR CONTINUES TRAINING
The founder of WikiEducator, Dr. Wayne Mackintosh, celebrated the launch of the OER Foundation in September by signing the Open Education Declaration at Warrington School, the first school in New Zealand to embrace WikiEducator's free hosting and training services.
Recognised as a prototype for scalable open educational resources (OERs) development, WikiEducator is now an independent entity, part of the non-profit OER Foundation established by Otago Polytechnic in Dunedin, New Zealand. WikiEducator continues to provide training in wiki skills for content editing through free online and face-to-face workshops, with funding from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. For more information about getting involved as a host, participant, facilitator or sponsor, visit the Learning4Content page on WikiEducator. COL also provides financial support for WikiEducator.
www.WikiEducator.org/Learning4Content
www.WikiEducator.org/images/a/ac/L4C_Report_Aug09.pdf
IGNOU EXTENDS ITS REACH
India’s Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) is employing unutilised capacity at educational institutions to offer programmes at 100 community colleges across the country. Students who attend these colleges can acquire associate degrees, which will ensure them lateral entry to the Bachelor’s programme for formal graduation degrees. IGNOU’s role will be accreditation, quality monitoring and evaluation, certification and course development. The community colleges are providing skills-based education that will enhance livelihoods and eligibility for employment for the disadvantaged and underprivileged.
IGNOU is also collaborating with nearly a dozen universities worldwide to develop skills among 10 million rural people in the next six years. The region-specific programmes will be offered in local languages through telecentres across the countries, which include Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Hungary, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Uganda. Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IRDC) is partnering with IGNOU in leading the initiative.
www.ignou.ac.in