Open University plans major cuts to staff and courses

The Guardian 23 March 2018

Open University chiefs are planning significant reductions in the number of courses the institution offers and the number of lecturers it employs, writes Diane Taylor for The Guardian.

Last June the Open University (OU), established in 1969 and the largest university in the United Kingdom, announced it needed to cut £100 million (US$141 million) from its £420 million-a-year annual budget, but specific detail of where the cuts would fall was not made public.

The Guardian has seen confidential documents that spell out proposals for the cuts. Staff have been invited to apply for voluntary redundancy in a programme that launches on 9 April. Lecturers have said the proposals are so significant they will “destroy the OU as we know it” and reduce it to “a digital content provider”. They have expressed concern about how the changes might affect the quality of degrees offered by the OU.
Full report on The Guardian site

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