Festival of Learning 2018

Access to relevant learning resources is an important aspect in ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all as outlined in SDG4. The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) has identified the development of OER as a potential answer to these challenges. A total of 29 provincial OER policies and guidelines were drafted in Sri Lanka, Botswana and Cameroon closely involving the provincial policy makers for school education. This session aims to share how this bottom-up approach was used to ensure wider advocacy for OER and the increased uptake/ownership from a larger number of policy makers/implementers spread throughout these developing countries.

The session will highlight provincial OER policy development activities in Sri Lanka, Botswana and Cameroon. The champions in each country will share their experiences in advocacy, sensitization and development of draft OER policies/guidelines for the school education system in their respective countries. I will use pre-recorded video clips of 5 minutes each for the champions to share their experiences. They will highlight the challenges faced in approaching the most rural of regions in their respective countries to advocate the use of OER for schools as a potential solution for the lack of textbooks. I will be speaking for approximately 15 minutes providing introductions, sharing resources and concluding. A 15 minute Q&A session will be required. Overall, the session will be 45 minutes.

More information regarding the activities can be found at http://oasis.col.org/handle/11599/2386 , http://oasis.col.org/handle/11599/2437 and http://oasis.col.org/handle/11599/2672