Degrees on TV

Once upon a time, oh best beloved, the only way to get a college degree was to be (a) rich, (b) related to royalty, (c) able to give up real life to live in an academic ivory tower for at least three years or (d) some combination of the above. Since those olden days, some bright spark has noticed that the most exciting developments in teaching have been sitting in our homes for the last seventy years or so - television and radio.

Here are objects that enable the finest teachers in the world to speak to you, and show you what they're talking about, without you having to leave the comfort of your own surroundings.

The Life Long Learning.com site says Distance education is delivered in many ways--by satellite, microwave, Internet, video, TV, audio, or print--so that whether you're a visual or auditory learner, you'll find a method to complement your learning mode. It also warns that someone who sits at home and tries to learn will find their own strengths and weaknesses are amplified, because there are no other students around to bounce off.

Today, of course, the Internet has become the preferred method of delivery for many learning programmes - it offers audio and video content, easy communication, and the ability for a student to work at his or her own pace.

But probably the most famous example of a distance learning project which has become a roaring success is Britain's Open University .

The Open University

The Open University is Britain's largest University, established by Royal Charter in 1969. OU courses are designed for people who also work for a living, using TV and radio programmes, specially produced textbooks, video and audio tapes, computer software and home experiment kits to enable them to work at their own pace in their own environment.

The oldest OU graduate ever was 94 - the youngest a mere 17. Since 1969 the OU has opened the door to higher education for 2 million people. Read more about the OU in this Adobe Acrobat PDF document . (You'll need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader program to read it)

The TV and radio programmes are made by a separate unit within the BBC, which is funded by a grant from the British Government's Department of Education and Science, rather than from the BBC's own license fee (this puts it in the same category as the BBC's World Service, which is funded by a grant from the British Foreign Office). The last figures I could find revealed there were 400 full-time BBC personnel working at the Open University production studios in Milton Keynes, including 60 producers who are recruited for their academic quality so they are not blinded by the science of the lecturers who appear in the programmes.

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