Open University starts closing courses

The raft of cuts hitting education is also slashing the budget for distance learning-based Open University. Last year the government announced plans to cut £31.6 million, 19% of teaching costs, and many, many jobs.

Students at the OU are spread throughout the world and come from all walks of life. One thing that is attracting many, especially young people, to the OU are its low fees and grants which helped working class students trying to avoid crippling debts. The attacks on Open University are attacks on many students who never got a chance to go to uni, and want to better their qualifications and learn, whilst still working full or part time jobs.

The cuts are supposed to effect only those taking second degrees or retraining, but this is not the case. In some instances, the result is that the degree you set out to do will not exist when you finish it. This puts immense pressure on part-time students who often have to juggle full-time work, childcare and other responsibilities whilst studying, as they may have to take on more courses in a shorter amount of time to get the qualification they set out to achieve.

A concrete example of this is in the Science Faculty. Official OU documents state that “The effect of the cuts will be that the Faculty will have to reduce its staff budget, making it impossible to maintain the size of the curriculum that we currently support." There will be “phased withdrawal of our current suite of named degrees, and their replacement by a single, more generic, named degree”. This means a scrapping of more specialist courses which can be benefitial when seeking employment.

For the many of us worried about what the future will bring, the cuts at OU present us with a harsh reality of life in Britain today, unless we wake up and fight for jobs and education. For those leaving school to work, youth unemployment hits us hard. For those going to university, cutbacks and huge fees beckon. For those who want to retrain, or work whilst they study at Open University, the picture is the same. REVOLUTION aims to go on the offensive against education cuts after Christmas. If you think the government should be investing in our future, not bailing out rich bankers then join us, and help us put a stop to the education massacre.