Save OU just like Maggie did, MPs urged

JUSTINE Greening has urged ministers to rescue the Open University just as Margaret Thatcher did more than four decades ago in a bid to help society’s poorest.

The former education secretary pointed out that Lady Thatcher had saved the newly opened OU from closure when leading the education department in the early 1970s.

She said the former prime minister had championed the institution because she knew ‘Britain’s biggest asset is our people’ – and called on the Government to do the same.

The Tory MP added that the OU should be instrumental in making the UK more meritocratic and ‘a place where there is equality of opportunity for the first time’.

Miss Greening was joined yesterday by one of her Labour predecessors, Lord Blunkett, who said the OU was a ‘life line’ and must be saved.

A Daily Mail campaign launched at the weekend highlighted how OU student numbers have dropped by 28 per cent in the last five years.

This coincided with fees trebling to make up for funding cuts from the Government – with experts saying the higher cost is putting mature parttime students off.

Miss Greening, the daughter of a steel worker from Rotherham, said she had battled against the odds to get a degree herself.

The Southampton University graduate said: ‘As the Daily Mail’s campaign shows, getting a degree from the Open University has transformed many people’s futures for the better over the years – something I understand from personal experience as the first person in my own family to be able to go to university.’

The institution was founded in 1969 as a Labour project, and when Lady Thatcher was made education secretary in 1970 she was urged by party colleagues to scrap it over cost issues. But she stood firm, saying she ‘could not defend’ its closing and insisted it remain open.

Miss Greening added: ‘Margaret Thatcher championed the Open University because she understood that Britain’s biggest asset is our people. Talent is spread evenly around our country, but opportunity is not.

‘That needs to change and I hope the Government’s review of higher education can have improving social mobility at its centre.

‘The Open University should be part of how we make Britain a place where there is equality of opportunity for the first time.’

Prime Minister Theresa May and universities minister Sam Gyimah pledged yesterday to examine the case as part of this year’s higher education review.