THE WORLD'S FIRST successful distance-teaching university, the Open University (OU) allows people of all ages and walks of life to enrol on one of 600 courses, leading to almost 200 qualifications. About 70% of students work full-time while they study. Celebrating its 40th anniversary last year, the university continues to go from strength to strength. In the 2009 National Student Survey, the OU's 166,522 undergraduates and 14,758 postgraduates gave it a student satisfaction score of 84%, ranking it third in the UK. The highest ranking university in our public sector list, the OU has more than 2m alumni, including comedian Lenny Henry (English literature), television presenter and musician Myleene Klass (astrophysics) and model Jerry Hall (humanities). It ranks higher than any other public sector body in our list for Giving Something Back and Fair Deal. It also ranks third in the My Company factor, which measures how staff feel about their employer and work ethos. Staff feel inspired by vice-chancellor Martin Bean (64%), a man they have great faith in (67%) and who leads on sound moral principles (68%) — and all top scores. The university practises what it preaches by giving employees free access to courses it runs and allocated time off for study. People receive, on average, 36 hours of formal training per year, at a cost of £755 each. Staff are not under too much pressure (66%, another leading score) meaning stress (68%) and feelings of exhaustion (50%, the best score among the big bodies) are rare. OU employees appreciate the positive impact the university has on society (82%) and don't feel it supports causes just to generate good publicity (63%). Both are top-ranking scores. www.open.ac.uk
