To think Higher Education must move courses online that could be done as distance learning?

[PersonaNonGarter]

The world is changing and the old style teaching requiring everyone to be in a lecture theatre or tutorial is over.

Social Distancing, Impact on the Planet, Widening Education - whichever way you look at it Universities should not be expecting their students to commute in.

So why aren’t they doing this? And why are people just accepting it?

YANBU but they need to lower tuition fees

Completely agree @Rubyjune91 - more access, lower fees, more flexibility.

@ErrolTheDragon as I recall, the OU has to change its structure due to the way government changed its funding model in England. I was doing some OU modules at the time and then had to commit those to a specific degree (though this could be the open one).

I agree it was a great shame as I enjoyed picking up modules here and there.

A couple of years earlier the government had also changed the funding if you were doing a degree at the same level or below what you already had. This hit the OU hard as many of their students were either reskilling or studying for pleasure.

I did my BA online (not OU, via a brick university) and I'm just days away from submitting my MSc dissertation - again, I did the course online via the same uni.

It is unbelievably isolating to study entirely online. I'm in a Whatsapp group with people on the same course but as it's modular, you can pick and choose which class/how many modules you do each term so we're all doing different things at different rates.

My supervisor is nice but he's really busy so I have to wait up to a week for him to answer any questions I have, which can kill my flow when I'm working on something. He emailed me a week ago with some dissertation guidance, I emailed him back immediately to say I didn't quite understand so could he give me an example, and now I'm twiddling my thumbs, unable to submit until he reads my email. Coronavirus notwithstanding, if I was a "normal" student I could pop in during office hours and sort it in ten minutes.

I'm thankful that I've been able to get my qualifications while still working full-time and earning a wage, but if I had the opportunity to attend the course on campus, I absolutely would.

Right... bloody stupid of the government then. And now the OU is in trouble...

The emphasis on '50% of kids should go to uni' threw out many babies with the bath water.

more access, lower fees, more flexibility

Online courses do not improve access. They would set us back in terms of widening participation and social mobility.

OU is doing fine, not in trouble at all. Those changes were ages ago now. But yes, bloody stupid of the government.

Oh, good, I'm probably half remembering something I read from a while back.

How can you get drunk at toga parties or learn how to do cheerleading or chat about your subject over endless coffee - remotely ? It's like some people don't get the point of Uni 😂.

There was a terrible VC preaching financial doom and trying to get everything online. The university got him out with a no confidence vote and it turned out the doom wasn't true (and everything is not online, it's still blended there).

Well if that is the case then I don't think they can justify charging £9250 for it.

You may be asking this of someone who hasn't yet had the opportunity to develop their critical thinking skills.

You may have missed posts that I hold two degrees, a post-grad and various other in-person courses. If you think I lack critical thinking then it just goes to show those in-person university courses just didn’t do what you claim and I passed fine without.

You have a point there Persona, I once tried to teach a cultural history module to sports science students. That was face to face and I'm sure I didn't manage to kindle even a flicker of critical thinking.

@FaFoutis

The OU was in huge financial difficulty - very recently It has had to close half its regional centres and make 25% of its staff redundant in order to survive.

I would say those were ideological decisions titchy, the old VC's legacy. Recent financial report had a huge reserve.

Yes OP we can all agree that the state of HE is rather dire and students can graduate with zero critical thinking skills. Not sure why you'd think that those same students, so lacking in reasoning abilities, should be the ones to call for HE reforms though. Best stick to whatever your degree qualified you for.

I could study online, I want to do an access course. I will study online for this course in order to gain enough credits to go to university as a mature student. The time spent doing the course while working will enable me to sort out finances so I can transition into attending a university in person later on (hopefully next year).

I never got to university after A levels, managed to screw them up , in part due to some awful teaching and bad career advice (30+ years ago now). So by next September, it could be interesting in our household with me and the two DC all in college/university