The BBC showed a lovely film about the history of the Open University, which is celebrating its fiftieth birthday this year.

Here is the BBC iplayer page…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0004j88/happy-birthday-ou-50-years-of-the-open-university

The University pioneered the idea of distance learning in higher education, and supported by technology, back then with TV, nowadays with the internet etc. From its beginning, the OU had had a very close relationship with the BBC.

The OU was proposed in the early 1960s and began in 1969. The possibility of part-time study from home opened up higher education to many people who had been previously been excluded for whatever reason. The OU has been especially popular with adult learners.

From where we are today, it is almost impossible to understand how limited access to HE was back then, and how, at the beginning of the 1960s, the experience was very different…Since only 4pc of the population had access to HE, the vast majority of people were excluded and, accordingly, limited in their professional and personal development.

In part, this was partly a problem of capacity…until relatively recently there were only ancient universities (pre-19C), then came the red-bricks (19C). The plate-glass universities were part of the post-WW2 expansion of HE and were campus-style communities.

But the experience of HE also changed. At the beginning of the 1960s, the small student population was almost entirely male…and was older, having completed national service. The new universities of the 1960s, especially the OU, were gender balanced and had a greatly expanded choice of subjects which extended to the new-fangled social sciences and to film theory and media studies.

By the end of the 1960s the student population in Britain had become larger, younger, and more gender-balanced. But, this population had also become more politically engaged through social science disciplines that espoused a critique of society deriving from Marx etc. Welcome to the counter-culture.

A lovely film with a beautiful message.

My own experience of going to university was very different. Here are a couple of posts that describe it briefly

One of the things that I didn’t mention in that post is that, because of when the University was established, and because of its progressive idealism, the campus became home to many Jewish and emigre academics. I was friends with Professor and Mrs Peter Plesch. The Plesch family story forms a small but important part of the narrative in a new book that celebrates the impact of this emigre generation on British culture.

Peter and Traudie Plesch helped me get started in the art world and were very kind to me. I remember them fondly and will always be grateful to them both. They were senior figures at Keele and had been these from almost the very beginning. Looking back, I’m amazed at my very great fortune in having met them.

One of the big names at Keele in the early days was that of Professor Sam Finer. It turns out that Karen, my wife, is cousins with the Finer family.

In a way, me and Karen came together in the same place, at the same time, but from slightly different directions. That place was a kind of utopia where art and life came together…perfect.