My mother, Pat Coombes, who has died aged 89, was a course coordinator at the Open University (OU), where in the late 1970s she helped to create a groundbreaking social sciences foundation course known as D102. When, in the early 80s, the Conservative government’s secretary of state for education, Keith Joseph, attacked the OU for having a Marxist bias, D102 was one of the courses in the firing line, and Pat supported colleagues and students through the resultant turmoil.
She later went on to help set up a distance learning MSc programme at Soas University of London, a module that aimed to support employees of newly formed governments in developing countries.
