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University in need of repair

Former Community Member over 5 years ago

https://www.economist.com/britain/2018/09/15/rebuilding-british-higher-educations-most-unusual-institution

Rebuilding British higher education’s most unusual institution .

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0 Roy Bowdler over 5 years ago

Moshe,

Once again I’m grateful to you for highlighting an important issue ,that had rather “slipped under my radar”. Some of the article was behind a paywall, but I found information elsewhere. Obviously Sandy has a better understanding than I do, but as a former student I’m saddened to learn of this decline and frustrated once again at the poorly thought out policies that seem to have precipitated it. We virtually threw apprenticeships in the bin, only recently fully recognising what we lost and trying to revive the model. Is the OU next?

I found this with reference to the change “In those days, there was a very large pool of middle-aged people who had been denied tertiary education, and for whom this really was the university of the second chance. But the pool of second chancers has now largely gone the way of black and white televisions.” (The Guardian).

My personal experience of the OU was rather different when 20 years into career and already holding an MSc (but not a bachelors), I enrolled on their MBA. I found that the flexible delivery model and AMBA accreditation attracted a wide range of participants from the UK, Republic of Ireland, Western Europe and beyond. Clearly it couldn’t compete with the more expensive, selective and “prestigious” Business Schools for propelling graduates into highly paid management consultancy type jobs, but this certainly wasn’t a “second chance” model, it was the “best chance” for its many already well-qualified mid-career people.

My experience was 20 years ago as higher education admissions had already expanded greatly and I paid significantly more than the fees charged at that time for an undergraduate degree at any UK university. It seems that OU admissions generally have fallen by 28% over the last five years. I also picked up A report last month revealed that the number of part-time students in England has declined by 51 per cent from 215,900 in 2010 to 105,500 in 2015, with the OU experiencing an even bigger fall of 63 per cent. Even if we accept that the proportion of people potentially suitable for further academic study who didn’t get it as teenagers has fallen significantly, this still seems very worrying and might have serious negative consequences. Have we understood these consequences properly and what are we doing to redress them. Another forum thread is discussing the IET Academy, which might be considered a competitor to the OU proposition?
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0 Roy Bowdler over 5 years ago

Moshe,

Once again I’m grateful to you for highlighting an important issue ,that had rather “slipped under my radar”. Some of the article was behind a paywall, but I found information elsewhere. Obviously Sandy has a better understanding than I do, but as a former student I’m saddened to learn of this decline and frustrated once again at the poorly thought out policies that seem to have precipitated it. We virtually threw apprenticeships in the bin, only recently fully recognising what we lost and trying to revive the model. Is the OU next?

I found this with reference to the change “In those days, there was a very large pool of middle-aged people who had been denied tertiary education, and for whom this really was the university of the second chance. But the pool of second chancers has now largely gone the way of black and white televisions.” (The Guardian).

My personal experience of the OU was rather different when 20 years into career and already holding an MSc (but not a bachelors), I enrolled on their MBA. I found that the flexible delivery model and AMBA accreditation attracted a wide range of participants from the UK, Republic of Ireland, Western Europe and beyond. Clearly it couldn’t compete with the more expensive, selective and “prestigious” Business Schools for propelling graduates into highly paid management consultancy type jobs, but this certainly wasn’t a “second chance” model, it was the “best chance” for its many already well-qualified mid-career people.

My experience was 20 years ago as higher education admissions had already expanded greatly and I paid significantly more than the fees charged at that time for an undergraduate degree at any UK university. It seems that OU admissions generally have fallen by 28% over the last five years. I also picked up A report last month revealed that the number of part-time students in England has declined by 51 per cent from 215,900 in 2010 to 105,500 in 2015, with the OU experiencing an even bigger fall of 63 per cent. Even if we accept that the proportion of people potentially suitable for further academic study who didn’t get it as teenagers has fallen significantly, this still seems very worrying and might have serious negative consequences. Have we understood these consequences properly and what are we doing to redress them. Another forum thread is discussing the IET Academy, which might be considered a competitor to the OU proposition?
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University in need of repair

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