University of London External Programme

Under the External Programme, students received lessons and governed their own pace of study, communicating with the university largely by mail. They prepared for degree-level examinations that were held in local centres, often overseas in the British colonies and later throughout the Commonwealth, and those who passed earned the same degree awarded to students at the University of London's London colleges. This arrangement decoupled teaching from examining in a radical way: the university assessed students it had never taught in person, guaranteeing the standard of the credential through external examination rather than through in-class instruction.

The programme invited criticism. Detractors argued that degrees obtained through correspondence could not be of equal standing with those earned by attendance, a debate over quality that echoed down the ages and reappears in slightly different form with every new online education technology. As one observer noted, the University of London External Programme experienced this criticism a hundred years or so before modern online programs did, with skeptics questioning whether its graduates could be of the same caliber as those who had studied in person. Defenders answered, as defenders of distance learning have always answered, that the examination standards were identical and that no reputable university would certify unqualified students.

The External Programme's institutional longevity is one of its most striking features. It ran continuously for well over a century, surviving war, empire, and sweeping changes in technology and society, and it reached students in countries across the world. Its influence extended far beyond the United Kingdom, because its model, a university awarding external degrees through examination, was copied and adapted by universities elsewhere. When colonies and dominions established their own universities, many drew directly on the London external model or admitted London external examinations in place of local provision.

In November 2007, the University of London External Programme was renamed the University of London International Programmes, bringing its legacy into the modern era of digital and flexible learning. Even that later incarnation has been studied for the lasting contribution the external programme made to the original institutional model of distance education. For the history of online higher education, the University of London External Programme matters as proof that the essential mechanics of distance degrees, self-directed study, written examination, and credentials awarded without residency, were established more than a century before the internet made them ubiquitous.