This research paper sought to engage with the challenge of determining the conditions under which use of OER can drive a transformative educational agenda in schooling systems, using case studies in the developing world as its action research terrain. The desktop research conducted served to reinforce the urgent imperative for transformation of traditional schooling models, which are increasingly unsuited to the world in which their students live. It also highlighted that the notion of a transformative educational agenda has a longstanding lineage, which precedes the emergence of the concept of OER by several decades. Given this, it becomes important to understand what the systemic blockages are that are impeding significant transformation and what can be done to circumvent these.
