Britain's pioneering experiment in mass education, the Open University, has now developed to the point where it seems unlikely that any government will go so far as to close it down. This is a rather modest level of success—one would hardly be justified in saying that the Open University has in any sense ‘come of age’, even though it has produced its first graduates. But there was a real prospect that the incoming Conservative government of 1970 might have abandoned the experiment, and with higher education generally still in a parlous economic state the mere fact of the continued existence of the Open University is something to take note of. How might the bridgehead established by the Open University be used to best advantage in the coming years? And do conventional universities have something to learn from the Open University in terms of cost effectiveness? —John Gribbin reports.
