The Open University is special.

Firstly, Let me not hesitate to say that this post is written with an enormous amount of bias, I am an Open University graduate and extremely proud to be one. Equally however, I am proud of having learnt from an institution that now feels uniquely placed to respond to teaching in the modern world.

The OU gained its Royal charter in 1969, and probably seemed a vague and strange idea when it was mooted as a 'university of the air' by the then Labour government that wanted it to reflect their commitment to the idea of the 'white heat' of technology and science (what is it about  the 60's by the way, Star Trek, Dr Who, walking on the moon, tech based universities - they all happened in this astoundingly optimistic decade!?). To many traditionalists and elitists it was anathema allowing many less educated plebeians access to higher education. even now the OU, perhaps uniquely, has very loose entry standards. They believe if you truly want to do it and can commit to it, you can achieve it - and they will enable you to do so. this is a good thing by any definition. Talk about aspiration nation - this is aspiration with support.

http://www.open.edu/openlearn/

I will be the first to admit that for some years the OU had an image problem. Mostly because its programmes were buried away at 1 am on BBC 2 and fronted by bearded kipper tie wearing educators who's programmes were seeing the light of day many years after their justifiable life-cycle. they were watched only by students, drunks staggering in  and finding this was the only channel still playing and insomniacs!

The other problem was perception. You could lose track of how many people used to say something akin to 'oh, the OU hey, they spoon feed you a lot of the stuff though don't they?' Well no actually! You work very hard whilst fitting your work around your life, partener, job but are still expected to produce work to the standard of full time students. In many ways it teaches you discipline and organisational skills on top of what you are learning in the first place.

Now however, the OU is coming into its own. As an institution built on technology, the 'internet age' suits it perfectly. Access to materials via the internet, CD Roms, online forums, social media groups and more have all been assiduously leapt upon and used by the OU and there has to be mention for its fabulous online library with an incredible array of connections and subscriptions.

As many institutions consider MOOCS as a potential threat or new way to go the OU can merely integrate the idea into its broad tech base.

Thinking back to the teaching standards I experienced it is small wonder to me that the OU had 17 out of 24 subjects assessed as excellent by the Quality Assurance Agency or that it is always highly ranked in student satisfaction surveys. You cannot find it in most University ranking tables because its courses are part time and  by distance learning but as many more venerable institutions venture into distance learning they can (and often do in partnership) do worse than to take a leaf from the OU's experiences.

As numbers of full time students are dropping and full time course fees are high, I for one hope that students don't overlook the OU as an option. It is a brilliant institution that as a nation we should be proud of for its eglaitarianism and success.