THE DECISION of the Open University to introduce a new system by which applicants for three of its courses will be chosen by lot has been met with dismay and disapproval by some of those interested in applying.
The new system will see applicants being chosen at random after they have fulfilled certain basic criteria for the university’s only undergraduate course and two post-graduate courses.
The previous system in place was based on a calculation of credits, with each application securing more weight according to the criteria it fulfilled.
The credit-based system is widely used in all public universities in Cyprus and Greece, the civil service and the National Guard.
According to disgruntled potential students, the new lottery system lacks the transparency and fairness of the previous system, because the credit-based system allowed for choices of applications to be substantiated.
The criteria for the university’s only undergraduate course, Studies in Hellenic Culture, are a high school graduation degree of at least 15 out of 20 and proficiency in a foreign language; including English.
The requirements for post-graduate courses are generally limited to the adequate knowledge of the English language and a degree related to the subject concerned.
Costas Christou, chairman of the university’s governing board said that the new system was actually fairer as age-related criteria had been removed, thus eradicating the recent trend where applicants aged between 25 and 33 were predominantly chosen.
Students complained that the new system lacks any sort of consideration for other factors such as financial conditions and branded the introduction of any criteria as a “betrayal of the university’s support for lifelong education”.
A 2009 decision by the then Ombudswoman had ordered the state-owned Open University to remove a requirement concerning the age of the applicant on the undergraduate course.
According to the criteria in place then, the longer elapsed time between the acquisition of the secondary school certificate and the application would merit more credits.
Iliana Nicolaou, the Ombudswoman at the time, deemed that the proviso created indirect discrimination which benefited older applicants.
The university had justified the criteria on the basis that younger applicants had more opportunities of studying somewhere else, while the university lacked the financial muscle to accept all applicants.
“With the credit system, and even with the age-related criteria in place, older applicants were being overlooked, but with the new system everyone has an equal chance” said Christou.
Applications for the 2012 -2013 academic year opened on January 4 while the deadline for applications to the taught programmes end on June 15.
