PM GIVES HOPE IN FIGHT TO SAVE OPEN UNIVERSITY
HOPES of an intervention to rescue the Open University rose last night after Theresa May and one of her ministers pledged to look at raising Government support.
The institution has suffered a dramatic decline in student numbers after funding cuts forced it to increase tuition fees.
Universities Minister Sam Gyimah yesterday said he was concerned about the drop in older and part-time students, who make up the bulk of the OU’s roll.
And the Prime Minister said the Government would review support to allow people to study at university in ‘a variety of ways that suits them’. Mrs May’s comments, made during her official visit to Sweden, suggest the Government could consider increasing state subsidies for OU and other part-time students.
The university has helped more than two million students to better themselves since it was founded in 1969.
But fees have more than trebled in the last five years due to it losing tens of millions of pounds of state funding.
At the same time, student numbers have dropped by 28 per cent with many deterred by the high cost, especially mature students. Lord Baker and a host of senior MPs yesterday backed the Daily Mail’s campaign to give the troubled institution more Government support.
Asked about the falling numbers of OU students, Mrs May said: ‘It’s not many weeks ago that I initiated a review of tertiary education in the UK. We’ll be looking at the range of options and making sure that people are able to access it in a variety of ways, ways that suit them, not just an assumption that there’s only one way through our tertiary education.’
Mr Gyimah added: ‘I recognise there has been a decline in the number of older and part-time students applying for university and this is something I am concerned about.
‘The review of post-18 education and funding will look at this issue and how we can encourage learning that is more flexible to support more people to study at different times in their lives.’
The OU has traditionally been the ‘University of the Second Chance’, helping mature students who are holding down a job. But the number enrolling has slumped from 242,000 in 2011 to 173,927 in 2016. In that period, annual fees rose from £1,400 to £5,856. This followed the Coalition’s decision to withdraw teaching grants to English universities.
Experts are now calling for the Government to give OU and other part-time institutions extra subsidies so they can lower fees. Yesterday Lord Baker, who served as education secretary under Margaret Thatcher, said: ‘The OU was one of the best things created post-war. It gave lots of young people a chance which they would not otherwise have had.’
Former Tory education secretary Nicky Morgan urged the Government to ‘ensure that part-time study, including the Open University, is a credible option’. Lib Dem leader Vince Cable added: ‘As developments in automation lead to greater uncertainty in some sectors, it is all the more important that people have the chance to retrain and learn new skills throughout their working lives.’ The Confederation of British Industry urged the Government to make sure the OU is affordable.
The row comes as the university plans a ‘radical’ overhaul to save £100million from its £420million annual budget. A spokesman said: ‘The Government needs to introduce some form of “flexible learning incentive” to bring down fees for hard- working parttime students.’