Primary and Secondary Education

This report seeks to explore various issues relating to education in sub-Saharan Africa. Of particular interest is how distance education and open learning can be supported by ICT, for the majority of people in Africa (many of whom are now excluded from educational opportunities of any form). The report is based on desk research, including a review of literature and examples of current initiatives using ICTs for education in sub-Saharan Africa, with a specific focus on open and distance learning.

This country case study outlines the education system in South Africa, ICT developments in education, relevant copyright laws and the various OER initiatives at national and institutional levels

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.

This toolkit introduces the concept of open licensing for educational materials, explores the use of open licences for these materials, provides a practical ‘how to’ guide for teams and government staff, and presents issues to consider before using open licences in World Bank and other education operations. Although all levels of education are considered in this toolkit, the focus is on OER in early childhood education and primary education project

This paper considers some of the challenges in defining digital learning and the political challenges in measuring cost-effectiveness. It then focuses on issues of cost-effectiveness using examples from three initiatives: the Nepad e-Schools Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) financial modelling tool, the adaptation of the UNESCO ICT Competency for Teachers (CFT) professional development course for teachers, and the South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE) Facilitating Online Learning course (FOLC).

In 2018 we published an open licensing primer for early literacy publishers on open licensing, with a brief section for authors and illustrators.1 So much has changed since then that we decided to take a fresh look at the issues and challenges, this time giving full attention to content creators, such as publishers, authors, illustrators, and teacher, all of whom have a stake in producing high quality and cost effective materials for education.

Education systems around the world have traditionally been characterized by closed knowledge systems, overly prescriptive curricula, narrow conceptions of success and achievement, and a failure to fully empower teachers as facilitators of learning. This inhibits their ability to develop a full spectrum of human learning capabilities amongst learners, especially in their formative schooling years.

Openly licensed educational content and librarians could enable more equitable access to quality resources, but only if governments, the development community, and other stakeholders pay attention to open educational resources (OER), open access, and other forms of open learning and research. This overview considers one global instrument aimed at facilitating openness, the UNESCO OER Recommendation, and carefully inspects it as it relates to the different library types in Africa and the user communities the libraries represent. 

This report sets out to understand the effectiveness of OER policies to date and whether there is evidence of integration between OER policy provisions and other mainstream government policy commitments or strategic goals.

The idea of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) has generated growing interest from governments around the world as a possible mechanism for developing and sustaining public infrastructure and services. For example, PPPs were identified at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development as significant tools for achieving global sustainable development. Many governments are turning to the private sector for the financing, design, construction and operation of infrastructure projects.