A Brief History

2007 marked the 20th Anniversary of the National Open College Network (NOCN) and the 25th year of Open College Networks. Learning can be a powerful force for change, an enabling and empowering experience that can shape lives and transform the communities in which our learners live. We work with national and local organisations which include governments, employers and education providers to develop and widen access to high quality and flexible education, training and learning.

As part of these celebrations we commissioned, with NIACE, a short narrative history of our origins and the work which has been undertaken by NOCN and OCNs during this time.  You can download a copy of this document from here.

OCN's are one of the greatest education successes of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The history and development of a 'movement' that seemingly came from nowhere, engaged with over 5 million people and crossed over 30 distinctive organisations.

A meeting of Manchester City Council on the 1st December 1981 formalised the creation of the first 'Open College Network', as such organisations became known as later in the decade. The Manchester Open College Federation (MOCF) registered its first learners in October 1982 and issued its first study passport in February 1983.

In the Black Country the four local authorities provided funding. In South Yorkshire Open College Federation, notionally founded in 1985, only really got off the ground two years later, after a long pilot period, when funding was secured for the four South Yorkshire Local Education Authorities. Merseyside Open College Federation (MerOCF) had a similarly long gestation period.

By 1988, the Black Country Access Federation (BCAF) in the West Midlands was moving to an accreditation model and there were developments in Hampshire (the Portsmouth passport Scheme) and South West Wales.

Open Colleges in London dates back to 1982. The London Open College Federation (LOCF) came into existence in 1988. It superimposed an accreditation function upon the structure of the four existing Open Colleges. LOCF was formally launched on 7 November 1989 at a ceremony at County Hall.

There was an 'Open College Networks Project' between 1988 - 1990. This was led by Manchester Open College Federation and South Yorkshire Open College Federation. By the time of the Project's final report there were 22 centres of significant OCN development - the foundation for the future membership of the National Open College Network.