What is a free university ?

A free university is one where learning and studying is free. It is an initiative in which people get together to help each learn and study whatever it is that they're interested in learning and studying. It is education for love of learning, organised by people who love to learn for people who learn because they're interested. A Free University ought to be one in which learning and studying is its sole purpose and character. A Free University ought to have no pre-requisites other than a person's interest to study. Therefore, participation in a Free University should be open to all : free of fees, free of qualifications, free of entry criteria, free of exams. Regardless of geography, social and economic background students ought to be able to participate in quality higher education to 'freegree' standards. We’re here to provide the flexible learning experience you need.

Why have a Free University ?
Education simply isn’t working for many of us. Universities are putting students into massive debt, adult education has been cut to the bone, and the education available rarely helps us makes sense of a rapidly changing world. So free university initiatives are attempts to create an alternative education that benefits us all, whoever we are, whatever our financial means.
Free universities aim to create more democratic educational experiences where teachers and students learn from each other.

Education for love, not money.

How does it work ?
What’s on offer is decided by local people and placed into the heart the community by making use of free public spaces. We make our own education. In this way we are reclaiming education as a public good and making it accessible to everyone. If you have something you can teach, or something you wish to learn, join us!

What will it cost me ?
Nothing - it's a free university. All you need to have is an interest in learning. Education for love, not money.

What’s on offer ?
Courses, practical workshops, introductory taster sessions, lectures, talks, discussion and debate… It could be any subject, at any level. Anything that enables us to think, develop, learn, enquire, question the world around us and, above all, explore how it could be different and better.

As a free university develops it can offer more structured courses and programmes to degree standard or, what we prefer to call, a freegree. A free university's offerings are as wide and diverse, as intense or focused as the participants wish them to be.

This Islands' initiative will begin at least with an emphasis on social sciences, philosophy and humanities.

Where will it happen?
Other free universities have used libraries, community centres, church halls, pubs, cafes, night clubs, a bin depot, derelict offices, the beach, even a tent! In fact, just about any building or space that people are willing to offer up for the love of learning. Meetings of the Free University of the Islands will initially be held in a cafe (in Tarbert) and a pub (in Leverburgh).

How can I get involved ?
We need people who can teach, people who want to learn, people who can help spread the word, buildings and spaces suitable for learning, and ideas for courses and educational events – what would you like to see on offer?

“Here, no one teaches another, nor is anyone self-taught. People teach each other, mediated by the world.” – Paulo Freire

Free University of the Islands ?

Here in the Islands, and certainly in Harris, educational provision beyond compulsory education is very limited. Whilst there is a campus of the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI North, West and Hebrides) at Lews Castle in Stornoway (and centres at Lochmaddy, Benbecula, Daliburgh and Barra) the formal degree courses and programmes on offer are limited, tend to be vocational and are largely geared to immediate post-18 students. This is all understandable, fulfilling a market, providing a purchased service, drawing on selected students who can fund their studies, are relatively free of other daily obligations (such as child care, income earning, house keeping) and who have pre-requisite entry qualifications. But what of all those who can’t afford to study ? And those who don’t have the pre-requisite qualifications ? Or don’t have the time or means to travel to the campus or centres ? Or would like to study or attend occasional courses or classes ? Or don’t want to take exams ? Or can’t find the courses or classes in subjects that interest them ?
A free university of the islands is, therefore, an additional, community-led response to providing education for those just interested in studying for learning’s sake. It is not a rival or competitor to UHI or any other ‘education provider’. It is a complement as well as alternative to established education which, in principle, evolves by responding to the interests of the local community. Indeed, in the longer run, a free university co-evolves between the changing interests of prospective students and the range of courses and subjects that potential teachers can offer. Put bluntly, if no one is interested to study then the free university won’t develop. If there’s no one to teach, then the free university won’t develop. But so long as there are two or more people interested in a subject - let’s not call them student and teacher any more - then a free university can develop.
Already we have two venues, provided for free, to host our first two courses. These venues are the Waterside Cafe in Tarbert and The Bothy in Leverburgh, both very deliberately chosen because they are not traditional places of education (though no less full of knowledge, perhaps wisdom for all that). Our first two courses are ‘An Introduction to Philosophy’ and ‘Issues in Global Politics : an introduction to International Relations’, both of five sessions each through October and November. Why these courses? Because the teacher offering these course thinks that they’d be of interest to people; they’re courses that he’s taught versions of many times before in different universities; they’re examples of classical university subjects; and we have to start with something :) In due course others may offer additional and different courses, and in turn student interest might be in other subjects … and so the free university will develop. It will be what we make it.

What’s the difference between a ‘free university’ and a regular university ?

Regular Universities

Whatever the fascinating historical evolution of regular universities in the UK and across the world, today regular universities are characterised by two key elements : money and regulation.

If you haven’t got money, or access to money, you can’t got to university. Although education is a protected human right almost all states across the world do not confirm that right to people beyond 14-18 years of age. In other words, what is called ‘compulsory education’ is typically provided (albeit often quite nominally), but post-16 education is regarded as optional and certainly not a right. Further education, higher education, continuing education including continuing professional development (CPD) is normally treated as a privilege, not a right. As such, only if you can afford that privilege can you access and enjoy the benefits of non-compulsory education. Universities must therefore charge students for the provision of higher education. (Note how the language has changed. Universities have jettisoned the description of institutions of learning, or where subjects are taught, and instead have become ‘service or education providers’. Where once universities were organised around Departments or Schools of Philosophy or Faculty of Engineering now they are organised through ‘cost centres.’ Where once, students registered on a course, now students pay for courses as consumers of education).
Second, regular universities are regulated. That is to say, regular universities have ‘degree awarding powers’ which are powers dependent upon their incorporated legal status. Only regulated universities can award degree-level qualifications. However, as time goes by, the once independent and self-governing universities have been increasingly subject to a myriad of nationwide regulation which defines, monitors, polices and penalises (usually financially) everything from teaching quality, to academic standards, to (something called) the ‘student experience’, to research initiatives, to research ‘output’ to international collaboration, to diversity and ‘non-traditional’ access to higher education, to student fees, to freedom of speech. Curiously salaries, wage rates and terms and conditions of employment are not subject to the otherwise all pervasive surveillance.
Both money and regulation see a top-down approach to education where it is the market, not the love of knowledge, which determines the direction and character of higher education.

Free Universities

By contrast free universities may be said to be free insofar as they are free of money and all those disciplinings of life through money. A student doesn’t have fees to pay in a free university. She doesn’t need to buy course materials. He can attend class as and when he’s able to - he won’t be kicked out for failing to attend because he couldn’t afford the bus fare let alone the student rent. She’d like to take an extra course, or the same course again, but can’t do so in a regular university because the system won’t let her and she needs to pay again. In a free university you can take a course as many times as you want.
What about regulation ? Can I get a degree from a free university ? The quick answer is : no-but-kind-of. Once a free university gets going, that is to say offering a broad range of courses over several years of study to a certain standard, which begins to look very similar to a regular university syllabus then a free university might offer a ‘freegree’ i.e, a piece of paper saying that you’ve successfully completed X years of study having registered on Y courses. Is it a formal degree ? No. Is it recognised as a degree ? No. But the student will have taken all the courses and at a standard that you’d typically find in a regular university. The free university might mimic some of the procedures and processes that characterise a regular university, such as course validation and external examining and review, but without the attendant bureaucracy, cost and regulation.