Thank you for Peter Wilby’s article describing Peter Horrocks’ proposed developments for the Open University. I worked at various levels of the OU, inspired, like many others, by its aims of providing new academic possibilities to thousands of adults hitherto denied opportunities for higher education (A visionary to save the Open University – or the man who will run it down?, 9 January). A sophisticated system for the development of courses and delivering them was developed. It provided support to students initially inexperienced in academic study and including the disabled who otherwise would have been excluded from higher education. Far from being proposals for a great new development of the institution, we seem to be witnessing the culmination of Tory ambitions to finish it off. The Tories never wanted this university; they regarded it as a vanity project of Harold Wilson and Jenny Lee. These new perspectives will be the final hammer blows to the drawn-out process of demolishing one of Labour’s greatest achievements.
Joan Bellamy
Former dean of arts, Open University
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