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Edited by Barry Garwood, Sunday, 25 Nov 2018, 00:29

We have received a message from the Vice-Chancellor, Martin Bean:

Dear students,

I have some news that I’d like to share with you.

After five wonderful years at The Open University, I am stepping down at the end of this year as Vice-Chancellor of the OU. I am going back to my home town of Melbourne, Australia, where I will be taking up the role of Vice-Chancellor and President at RMIT University – an institution with values and a spirit similar to your own.

Throughout my time here, I have been clear that students lie at the heart of everything the OU does. Without a doubt, the highlight of this job is presiding at our degree ceremonies – standing on the stage, shaking a procession of sweaty palms and celebrating your success.

I am very proud of the steps we have taken during my time here to strengthen the relationship between the University and its students. The Open University Students Association (OUSA) does a tremendous job of representing you, and Marianne Cantieri – President of OUSA – has been a tireless advocate for student interests. I have enjoyed working with her and look forward to continuing this with her successor, Ruth Tudor, over the coming months.

The close working relationship between OUSA and the university has borne real fruit over recent years, for example the new Student Charter unveiled last year and the introduction of new ways for the OU to consult its student body.

The Open University transforms lives for the better - it has certainly transformed mine. As students, you are what makes the OU truly remarkable and I wish you all the very best with your studies.

Best wishes,

Martin

Well, Mr Bean, You have presided over a period where the old Open University as we know it has been run into the ground. Whereas before students were free to choose course combinations and individual courses as they wished, now we have moved to a rigid structure that is almost identical to the format of a conventional university, without the bricks and mortar.

The February starts have gone, we are confined to a conventional October to June timetable. The option to study at higher levels without going through tedious lower level courses that we may have no interest in has gone. The funding systems that made the university truly open to all have gone.

Now we have massively expensive courses with a move to more and more online presentation, with less and less of the conventional high quality books that have made my study experience so rewarding. There appear to be numerous complaints from disabled students, who may have no option but to study with the OU, that the new online systems are increasingly innaccessible to them.

I have not attended a degree ceremony and have no desire to shake your sweaty palm in front of a crowd of handclapping strangers, while dressed in some hopelessly unfashionable outfit.

The quality of my degree certificate is an absolute disgrace, it is printed on the flimsiest of paper, which I assume is just standard A4 printer paper worth less than a penny a sheet.

Is that really the way to reward years of hard work, a pathetically cheap degree certificate?

As for your suggestion that OUSA does a 'tremendous job' of representing me, in fact I have been so badly treated by the cartel known as OUSA that I have had no real option but to resign as a member in disgust. The OU over which you preside seems almost indifferent to the way OUSA conducts itself.

The officers of OUSA are all elected in single candidate elections that any self respecting dictator would be proud of. The latest round has simply produced a list of incumbants that are more or less the same as before.

Marianne Cantieri has moved on and I wish her well, but it seems that most of those below her has just moved up a notch, or kept a similar role.

It is a disgrace that the OUSA election system is designed to be so complicated that only the in-crowd have any real prospect of gaining a post.

The changes that have come about, albeit partly due to the disgraceful education policies of this government, mean that the OU is more and more aimed at younger students working for their first degree and less towards the older generation who already have a degree and can now only study if they can front the new enormous fees. As such I would have thought it was important to have a system that sees some of these younger, less qualified people acting as OUSA's representatives, rather the same old bunch.

Lets hope new Vice-Chancellor takes these issues seiously.

Barry Garwood  

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The State of Britain

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The Bureaucratic state has become a self perpetuating gravy train, as armies of officials think up new laws to introduce and enforce in order to keep themselves in the gainful employment to which they have become accustomed.

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