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The Open University Students Association

My experience of the Open University Students Association has not been great. I love the OU but the students association what do they do exactly? I have been with the OU since 2018 and only just discovered the association in 2020. Surely an organisation which is supposed to support students should have rather more presence amongst the students. When I talked to my fellow students I was not remotely surprised that 90% of them had never heard of/ come across the students association. The students association is supposed to support OU students. Sadly it seems that the Open University Students Association is rather out of touch with students. I decided to join the association as I felt that they could do with having at least one student within their midst who could help improve their student engagement. Although I was voted in elected in to a position on the student council (student voice) I have subsequently been asked to leave my position more than once because I was unavailable for a couple of meetings due to severe ill health and other significant factors. Is this type of organisation valuable to anyone? It certainly hasn't added any form of value to my student experience as yet. I am not raising this issue for no reason. Huge amounts of money time and energy go into creating organisations such as this and I ask is it worth it? This organisation does not seem to be benefitting anyone so why does it exist? I am not expecting the association to engage perfectly with all 170,000 or so OU students across the globe. Lets see if we can find even 100 positive reviews from independent students with no conflict of interest on unmonitored platforms. I couldn't even find that. My advice to Open University students is to contact your tutors or the Open University directly if you need help with something as they are much more likely to assist you. I am so sad that I wasn't able to improve this situation for OU students. I will continue to voice my concerns publicly. The reason I joined OUSA in the first place was in the hope of bringing about positive change. Ultimately I still represent the OU student community. The way in which I have been belittled and pushed aside is reminiscent of the way in which OUSA treats OU students. I really do hope that in the fullness of time they will come to their senses about how they are engaging with students and work towards improved student engagement moving forward.

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 1

Purple Thistle

Can I ask if you are still interested in discussing this ? I have several ongoing issues with OUSA, the most serious being bullying by them.
The response is ‘submit a report’.
That is: submit a report to them, so they can alter any version of events and dismiss the grievances!!