International Youth Day: Open Learning as a Driver to Realising the Sustainable Development Goals?

Image courtesy of Monstera, Pexels, see licence

On the 12^th August, we celebrate International Youth Day. This year’s theme is ‘Intergenerational Solidarity: Creating a world for all ages’. The theme encourages people to think about how to harness the full potential of all generations to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Given that youth[1] constitute approximately 16% of the global population, the decisions and investments we make in empowering them are a strong predictor of success in realising sustainable development for societies. However, one of the main barriers to sustainable development is unequal access to high quality education, which disproportionately affects young people. So, it makes sense to ask: how can we create a world where people of all ages have access to the same educational opportunities, and what role are youth playing in this quest? At OER Africa, we strongly believe that part of the answer lies in open learning.

Around the world, youth have held a mirror to society and have questioned the status quo. They have asked important questions about social structures, politics, economics, and power dynamics. Young people are becoming increasingly influential in different spheres, including the education sector. One would be hard-pressed to find a comparable period in history where youth have been able to voice their experiences to such a wide audience and incite change as a collective. The past decade has seen youth ask valid questions about education systems, how they function, and who they serve. Their concerns have stemmed primarily from inequitable access to high quality education. For example, angry youth in Chile recently protested expensive and poor-quality school and university education, echoing South Africa’s #FeesMustFall protests which have raged intermittently since 2015.

High quality education still eludes a significant proportion of the world’s population, even though the right to education is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. At the United Nations Headquarters’ OpenCon UN in 2018, Rajiv Jhangiani explained,

Many of you will recall these words from Article 26 [of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights]:

‘Everyone has the right to education.’

And yet, over 265 million children are currently out of school.

‘Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages.’

And yet, 57 million out-of-school children are of primary school age.

‘Technical and professional education shall be made generally available’

And yet 617 million youth worldwide lack basic mathematics and literacy skills.

‘higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.’

And yet, by 2025 tertiary education worldwide will need to find a way to provide 100 million additional seats.[2]

Done well, open learning can provide part of the answer to the question of how we can rebuild education systems to be more inclusive, accessible, and meaningful. Open learning is an approach to education which has two primary aims: first, it seeks to remove barriers to learning and second, it aims to give students a reasonable chance of success in an education and training system that directly addresses their needs. At its core is the quest to democratise access to quality education, as it seeks to ‘allow as many people as possible to take advantage of affordable and meaningful educational opportunities throughout their lives through: sharing expertise, knowledge, and resources; reducing barriers and increasing access; and acknowledging diversity of context.’[3] This definition is a fundamentally inclusive one that works toward the idea of an education system that serves all.

Saide (nd) highlights the following key principles of open learning, which acknowledges the need for flexible, meaningful, learner-centred education throughout one’s life: 

• Learners are provided with opportunities and capacity for lifelong learning 
• Learning processes centre on the learners and the contexts of learning, build on their  experience and encourage active engagement leading to independent and critical thinking 
• Learning provision is flexible, allowing learners to increasingly determine where, when,  what and how they learn, as well as the pace at which they will learn 
• Prior learning and experience is recognised wherever possible; arrangements for credit  transfer and articulation between qualifications facilitate further learning 
• Providers create the conditions for a fair chance of learner success through learner support, contextually appropriate resources and sound pedagogical practices.[4]

One of the most well-known elements of the open learning ecosystem is Open Educational Resources (OER), which are teaching, learning, and research resources that exist in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property licence that allows others to use and/or repurpose them. If used to support effective pedagogical practices, OER can make a significant contribution to advancing the principles of open learning (though the use of OER should not be conflated with the adoption of open learning principles).[5] There are several case studies that demonstrate the impact of OER initiatives, including OER Africa’s recent research on OER initiatives in African higher education and our collaboration with the Network of Open Orgs to develop a set of seven case study summaries and accompanying report that explore the successes of OER. This research has demonstrated how OER initiatives have succeeded in improving access to educational materials, mainstreaming the use of OER into institutional practices, and developing resources and research, amongst other successes.

The growth and adoption of OER is also spurring the rise to other notable open movements, such as the Open Access (OA) movement. OA generally refers to research outputs that are distributed online, which are free of cost and may be licensed with a Creative Commons licence to promote reuse. OA journals are growing in popularity, and websites like DOAJ curate and index directories of such journals. OA can be used as OER if the open content is used in a teaching/learning context.

However, the use of open licensing does not automatically lead to better education systems, nor does it allay the need to address educational challenges from multiple angles. Butcher and Hoosen (2019) stress that opening access to educational opportunities through tools like open licensing is only part of the work of creating effective education systems.

'… it is important to recognize that designing and implementing effective educational environments is critically important to good education and encompasses many more dimensions than simply opening access to educational materials using open licensing. Thus, OER should not be regarded as a panacea to challenges facing education systems but are nevertheless a potentially important contributor to bridging gaps in access and equity in education'.[6]

Open learning principles provide a foundation on which we can rebuild education systems to better serve people on their lifelong learning journey, starting with the youth. Open learning is one of the most apt expressions of intergenerational solidarity: when we collectively seek to improve access to and quality of education, we can fully harness human potential and move society towards sustainable development. So, as we celebrate this day, let us also remember that we each have a role to play in this pursuit.

Related articles:

• Researching OER initiatives in African higher education
• Researching the benefits of OER through the Network of Open Orgs
• Empowering youth to transform food systems: the role of OER
• Why is 'Open Education' important?