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Fears of “dumbing down” as OU considers cuts
7 July 2009
Science department’s internal document proposes shorter courses and changes to practical work. Hannah Fearn reports
The Open University is planning to shrink its undergraduate science curriculum in a controversial cost-cutting move.
A document outlining proposed cost-saving measures in the science department, which was passed to Times Higher Education, states that the OU is considering scrapping its named science degrees and offering just one undergraduate course, a BSc in “Natural Science”.
The briefing paper, by Phil Potts, dean of science, says the new Natural Science degree will also “allow some reduction of the total number of modules (courses) required to support this qualification”. The paper states that the university will suffer a 10 per cent fall in teaching funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England, as a result of the Government’s decision to cut funding for students taking qualifications at an equivalent or lower level than those they hold (ELQs).
It says that the science department must also have in place a contingency plan for a further 10 per cent cut in 2010 “linked to the widely held view that the Government will reduce funding to the UK higher education sector (including the OU) because of the need to reduce public spending”.
The cuts mean it is not able to continue to maintain its current staff levels or curriculum.
As well as cutting courses, the department is also considering withdrawing its residential schools and replacing them with “equally effective but more economical ways of teaching practical science”.
“We now believe there are exciting alternatives to our present residential schools in delivering practical work,” it said.
A member of the Open University Student Association, a postgraduate in the department of management and science, said: “As a current student, I am concerned that this ‘dumbed down’ degree will not be as respected and may affect students’ chances of getting a degree-related job or of being accepted to further study. The Open University is a unique institution and should be supported – not undermined – by the Government if they are really serious about inclusion in higher education.”
Kate Allen, a geosciences undergraduate shortly to complete her degree, said she was “absolutely gutted” about the plans to overhaul the science curriculum.
“The Open University argues that the number of people graduating in named science degrees is declining but in my field – geoscience – the number of people claiming a BSc is rising steadily – 48 in 2006, 71 in 2007 and 91 in 2008,” she said. “The removal of fieldwork opportunities will severely hamper students’ employability once they graduate. It is simply nonsense to say a science degree with fieldwork experience is equivalent to one without it.”
She added: “Prospective students are likely to vote with their feet and deny the OU further income as a result of this, to the point at which science degrees in general could become financially unviable. This is a sad day for the OU and makes a mockery of the government’s rhetoric on lifelong learning.”
Tom Sperlinger, director of lifelong learning for English at the University of Bristol, said the proposed cost-saving measures represented the second phase of the impact from the government decision over ELQs. “The provision that survived the initial culls often did so at a cost or in isolation, and thus it is vulnerable as wider cuts in higher education loom,” he said. “The result is a vastly reduced curriculum for adult students, and in this second phase the damage is clearly spreading beyond the arts and humanities, which bore the brunt of the initial cuts.”
Professor Potts said no decisions for change had yet been made and appropriate notice would be given if courses were withdrawn and other qualification structures changed.
“Considerable attention has been paid to the way the new curriculum will provide learning opportunities in practical science. This will be the same length in terms of hours of study as at present and there is absolutely no suggestion of dumbing down or losing rigour,” he said.
Professor Potts confirmed that the withdrawal of residential schools would not mean withdrawal of practical work in science. Present plans, at an early stage of development, would allow students to make “innovative use of ICT [and] immersive technologies to learn advance practical science skills”, he said.
“Although the proposed changes outlined here are required because of external funding drivers, we are taking advantage of these changes to plan a science curriculum for the 21st century suitable for delivery using distance learning methodology and compatible with the concept of a global online science curriculum,” he added.
hannah.fearn@tsleducation.com
Readers' comments
I too am affected by these changes, as are many others. We work incredibly hard to be rewarded with the respect and credibility that these awards bring. I work as a lab technician in a secondary school and see first hand how a lack of practical science affects learning. The government has made a mockery of education in every way.
The OU should confine itself to courses which does not need wet lab work or bench-based practical work. I worked as an OU tutor for 10 years and know that there is plenty of room for cutting costs. For a start in the regional centres the number of staff tutors and adminstrators should be reduced. The staff tutors are often ignorant and recruit the wrong kind of tutors particularly in sciece and technology related subjects. In computing for example we have seen colleagues who never taught the subject and were in real life were teaching subjects like Geography. The Milton Keynes HQ looks like a cluster of hotels with conferences centres, coffee and tea wheeled in and out, lunch served for groups etc..all the year round. We know all this means. Thosetutors attending were given taxi fare reimbursements some allowance. Compared to this, a few universities which offer similar kind of distance learning courses do with less admin overhead and jamboree. With most courses delivered on line, OU boasting e-learning, why these many administrators and staff tutors and the plethora of staff at Milton Keynes? OU tops the proposed round of teaching cuts as THE reported, and I am afraid it is not enough. With more and more traditional universities offering distance learning courses, OU needs to be made to trim and trim particularly its regional centres staff and Milton Keynes staff. If admin or staff tutors are needed more, make all these positions part-time and job-sharing. Make all staff tutors position part-time and hourly paid . Lots of areas for reducing the costs.
"The OU should confine itself to courses which does" should read "which do not.."
The posting needs a few more proof reading. May be I was also the wrong recruitee for the OU proving the point!
Never mind, Freddy - this comment forum, with its tiny font size and one-shot only submission function doesn't have the most useful interface for careful proof reading before you submit, so I'm sure many readers will make allowances.
I was also an OU tutor-an AL and most of the staff tutors "who managed me", they were proud to trumpet this, had had no experience of teaching students face to face except meeting a depleted few in tutorials. Similarly most of the members of the course team in my faculty had no experience in teaching students face-to-face ( most of them were OU inbred)and never understood the students' problems and ALs had to deal with the badly set coursework, syllabus, coverage etc... Some courses in computing for example are assessed by coursework only and students make tutors ( who are part-time working a few hours in week) work full-time, and expect coursework solutions from them so that they can copy and submit. The tutorail classes if and when students come are a waste of time as students without any preparation sit and expect the tutors to work out examples and very few take part in discussion. This is so familar in mathematics and computing courses. Most staff tutors are paper pushers, although a few take tutorials but are unbelievably pedantic showing their inexperience and often ignorance. I do not see why the OU should continue as it is and why it should not downsize starting with regional centres, and its modality of operation changed.
5-6 Years ago I found out about OU first. I liked it. Then started to investigate everything about them. They said even I can study their accounting and management reports. So I did. I decided that OU is being mismanaged. Then I gave up. I wrote several letters to related people. No comments back. So totally I forgot OU. Now I see I have seen the situation 5-6 years ago. I am sorry to see that. Open University, Open ONLINE Courses from reputable universities are perfect solutions to education. Just look up www.academicearth.org of Yale , MIT, Princeton etc. they are free and they are 50 times better than OU.
@Muvaffak GOZAYDIN. Besides what you list there are traditional universities here which offer very good on-linedistance learning courses. For masters, there are excellent distance courses offer from universities like Manchester, Liverpool and Exeter. The OU should quietly merge with the one of these universities, and close down its regional centres.