Last-minute insertion gave rise to Open University’s name

The Open University, broadcast in association with the BBC, enrolled its first students in January 1971. Photograph: Peter Trulock/Getty Images

Re the letters of 18 March, the first use of the term Open University was in a footnote to Brian Jackson and Dennis Marsden’s book Education and the Working Class (1962). Michael Young took it up in preference to “University of the Air” and wrote a paper which I inserted at the last moment in the magazine Where?, calling it Towards an Open University. That established its name and ethos.

The OU was the outstanding legacy of the Wilson government, giving a second chance to hundreds of thousands of people failed by the conventional education system, especially women. It would be a tragedy if all that were to be lost as a result of funding cuts and high fees.
Sonia Jackson
Emeritus professor, UCL Institute of Education

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