It’s that time of year again. Within a couple of weeks students will know what grade they got in the IB and those that make the grade will be eagerly looking forward to spending the next three or four years at university. This scenario has played out for many years but its days may be numbered. In reality many students face mounting debt as they (or their parents) struggle to pay for their tuition fees and their living expenses. On top of that there is absolutely no guarantee that they will end up with a satisfying job when they leave university. Is it all worth it?  Already a few of the best students are opting to go straight into employment rather than apply for university. Two new initiatives from the US may radically accelerate this trend. The Universities of Princeton, Stanford, California, Berkley, Mitchigan and Pennsylvania have teamed up to offer Coursea. Coursea is based on e-learning and provides courses led by university professors completely free of charge to anyone that wishes to sign up. In a separate initiative Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have teamed up to form edX. Like Coursea, edX aims to offer free online learning to millions of people around the world. It will provide self-paced learning, online discussion groups, wiki-based collaborative learning, online laboratories and assessment. The idea of learning ‘at home’ is not new – Harold Wilson’s 1960s government pioneered it in the UK with the Open University but what is new is both Coursea and edX will be free and open to anyone. It is early days yet but students may well start to ask what the value of a traditional expensive university education is when they can obtain it all for nothing. One spin-off that is not mentioned by the universities is that it may well change the way IB Chemistry teachers actually teach. If students no longer demand high grades for university entrance then maybe, just maybe, we can return to teaching students to think and learn and instil passion for our subject rather than just drilling them to pass exams.

The launch of edX: