Part-time and Continuing Education and the Open University

Baroness Taylor of Bolton Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend Lady Bakewell on achieving this debate and regret that we have only three minutes. I should draw attention to my university declaration in the register but the reason that I wanted to speak in this debate is that many years ago, I taught with the Open University. One of the common themes that we have seen in this debate, whether we are talking about people who have been students, the families of those who have been students, people who have been tutors or those who have served in governance at the Open University, is the enormously high respect that every single person who comes into contact with the university has for it. I was going to make the point that my noble friend Lord Puttnam has just made: if anybody has not been to an Open University graduation ceremony, they really should go. But they should also take a box of handkerchiefs because it is an incredibly moving experience.

In my days in the Open University, many years ago, I was always impressed by the quality of the course material. It was interesting to see how much of it was then used by other conventional universities. More than that, I was particularly impressed by the students and their motivation. My noble friend Lord Puttnam has just outlined what he went through. It proves that the motivation of students who come to the Open University or to Birkbeck must be very high. Many of us were the first in our families to go to university but, for the most part, those who are the first to go to university have full-time jobs, families and mortgages. If anybody thinks that the funding arrangements do not matter, they should look at what has happened with bursaries for nurses. Nursing places are still being filled by very good candidates, but they are not being filled by mature students, as they were a few years ago, because those people do not want to inflict an extra burden on their family, especially when they are taking time away from them.

The OU briefing that we have all been sent sets out several points it would like to be pursued. I shall concentrate on and explore one factor that has not been mentioned too much today. It is the need for this sector of education to be very flexible and to provide progressive pathways. It is desperately important that people can move from one sector of education and one type of qualification approach, and we need credit accumulation and credit transfer to become an integral part of all we offer to part-time and mature students. I do not think we are talking about the US model of a credit for basketball, although what my noble friend Lord Hunt said was interesting, but the Open University’s foundation courses—the building blocks and segment approach—is vital if we are to be able to provide people with the multiple skills that they will need in the future. The report on AI has been mentioned, as has the fact that people no longer have jobs for life. We have enough experience to design this for the future. I am glad that we have this debate today. We are celebrating the National Health Service, but the Open University is the other great achievement, of Harold Wilson and the Labour Government.