Foreign Perspectives

After a bit of nagging and prompting, Wendy got around to filling the application for the Art and its histories (AA100) course several months ago.

One major complication in the application was her nationality in that it’s Australian and so non-European. That meant that we had a bit of a job showing the Open University that she was eligible for the UK fees. Although you’re supposed to have been living in Europe for the previous three years and in the UK at the time you apply, in practical terms the OU seem to assume that anyone British or Irish and quoting a UK address has been living here forever.

Wendy however needed to show that she was living in Europe for the previous three years. That might sound simple but in practical terms it isn’t in our case. The usual proof would be stamps in her passport but there aren’t any appropriate ones as the immigration people aren’t allowed to stamp her passport since she has a European residence permit (well, the entitlement to one as it hasn’t arrived yet).

What seemed to happen in the end when we made the final phone call was the manager handling applications figured that it was easier to just mark her as eligible for UK fees and thus bring in another £650 for the OU rather than worry too much about the lack of normal proofs that she has been in Europe for getting on for 10 years.

Anyway, we’re now organising the books for her and the course texts should be here in the next week or so.