Rebuilding British higher education’s most unusual institution

WHEN the Open University was founded in 1969 to offer distance-learning degrees, the intention was to throw open the gates of higher education. It would offer respected, cheap qualifications to students lacking the exam results or freedom to attend other universities. Despite scepticism at the time, it became the largest university in Europe, and is considered one of the great success stories of 20th-century higher education. “What other nation”, asked Bill Bryson, an American writer, “could possibly have given us William Shakespeare, pork pies, Christopher Wren, Windsor Great Park, the Open University, Gardeners’ Question Time and the chocolate digestive biscuit?”