What Was It That Made the Ou Revolutionary for Its Time?

386 Words2 Pages
What was it that made the OU revolutionary for its time? Which educational opportunities did it provide to British students? The Open University system was established quite recently – in 1969, but it has already led to a complete turnover in British education. It is a distance learning and research university that attracts thousands of people from all over the world to receive a degree there. To my mind, such wide popularity is not difficult to understand or explain. The OU has several advantages that made it revolutionary for its time and that helps it remain relevant nowadays. In the second part of the twentieth century the OU provided their students with broadcasting programmes on the radio and television, where teachers read lectures. That gave an opportunity to a lot of people from distant parts of the country, who could not afford to move to London, to get a first-rate education. Besides, such transmissions were available to everybody, so all could listen to the lecture and think about possible entering the OU. One more significant feature of the Open University is its open entry policy: it means that previous achievements of applicants are not important, so it provides British students with much bigger access to higher education. It also enables social mobility, people from all classes have the same entering terms, in addition, tuition fees are lower. Moreover, due to its distance learning system it really helps disabled people become OU graduates and obtain a higher education, and also gives an opportunity to elder students combine their work with studies. It can accept much more students than conventional universities, because it should not worry about dormitories and spend money on other services for students, such as, student organizations, dining rooms, sports. Besides, foreign students also have this opportunity to enter the OU and earn a
Open Document