The Open University – why we need to expand Wilson’s crowning achievement

By Carl Rowlands

Phil Woolas’ mistake in attempting to tie “brownie points” to “subjecthood” is understandable and yet somehow indicative. The clumsy attempts of the Labour Government to define Britishness as a cultural entity have been likened to an attempt to fashion a car out of scrap metal, whilst a Rolls Royce lies rusting in the garage.

Democratic traditions have an enormously wide history in the British Isles: Westminster’s failure to construct a narrative from our participatory heritage and to define an inclusive British Isles culture reflects a lack of feel and empathy for these traditions. Currently, politicians seem to have difficulty engaging with an idea of majority British culture, leading to Britain’s current unnecessary sense of insecurity.

Beyond contemporary pluralism, one of the most understated aspects of British society is that of individualism. As a culture, it has become received wisdom that we are individualistic. The right-wing have leant on this definition as justifying the abrasive society of low income taxes and various artificial competition at all levels of society. The current political “settlement” or consensus, is that of crude pluralism, where all cultures are regarded as deserving equal treatment, combined with a more laissez-faire approach to work and commerce.

This “pluralist consensus” – which David Cameron is felt to epitomise – is actually a media construction. Reality is more complicated and in many cases harsher. Labour must do better than this. Improving the rights of agency workers would make individuals more empowered. The individualism of the marketplace is barely any kind of individualism at all. I prefer the language of Marx in this regards – that of emancipation. In the year of the Open University’s 40th anniversary, Harold Wilson’s crowning achievement stands testimony that Labour’s real values lie as much with designing the structures to release creativity – and informing socialisation as a way of discovering our own individuality.

Many of you will think that this sounds horribly hippyish and 1960s. I make no apology for this. Whilst the period of 1945-51 resulted in some amazing achievements, there were particular factors which would make those conditions impossible to reproduce. Any future “thinking” Labour government will probably take 1964 as a closer starting point than 1945 or 1997.

I think any attempt to build a version of Galbraith’s “Good Society” in 2009 should feature individualism at its core. There’s no real participation in a democracy without socialisation, understanding of justice and the ability to rationalise. Later stages of socialisation are crucial to develop a sense of how one’s identity and self are also dependent upon others – that “social consciousness” is a component of socialisation. We need people to “be all they can be”. It involves others, and a degree of social justice.

Just the same as in 1969, education is the key to emancipation and discovery. We need an “education society” – one which is tolerant of differences in approach to learning. It means once again opening up education methodology to experimentation: not in an uncontrolled or chaotic way, but to acknowledge the validity of different approaches.

Expanding education can achieve three objectives:

Firstly, it moves debates regarding individualism away from a simple tax argument, and moves this debate to a point regarding education – the need for education, for its own sake.

Secondly, it reflects who we are as a party, the fact that Labour members and supporters are often public servants, and out of this, many of us do work in the sphere of education. This also explains our frustrating tendency to “know better” as a Party, which can make us slow to react and adapt.

Thirdly, in the new economy which has partially arisen, it could be that abstracted and apparently obscure approaches to learning could be equally if not more valid for developing people’s talents. At just the time when flexible and experimental approaches to learning were becoming economically vital, the 1997 Labour government has greatly restricted freedom of manoeuvre; and of course, for the educators, they must also work to value individuality amongst themselves and others.

Enhancing and emphasising individuality, achieved by a massive expansion and diversification of the education system at all life stages, is absolutely in the interests of social democrats as it will increase the chances of people being able to participate in the economic democracy of the future. It improves the ability of people to build the social enterprises and institutions that we will need to handle an ageing population with transformed power relations. And of course, as a fiscal stimulus with a vital supply-side boost, the expansion and reshaping of education would be a great recession-buster. “Education, education, education” – which was right in 1997, and right now. I’d just like a slight amendment: “Free education, free education, free education.”

Rather than attempting to siphon money away from the Open University, now is the time that the OU should be boosted. To counter the recession, many of its courses should now be entirely subsidised by the government. With the huge numbers of digital channels now made available, there is the opportunity to launch advanced-level channels with programming for the sciences and arts. The internet, with its possibilities for conferencing, seminars and presentation, is a perfect gift for future educational possibilities. The OU should be supported in fully exploring this.

But we need all this now. We need this expansion in education as soon as possible, for the graduates and schoolleavers facing a harsh future, with aimlessness soon crystallising to defeatism. Rather than the half-baked welfare reform currently blotting the landscape, the employment service must be wired up to libraries, universities, colleges, with course after course opened up to the jobless. And the money must be found.