Articles and Updates

World Book and Copyright Day on 23 April is a celebration to promote the enjoyment of books and reading. Now that so many of us are at home with our children because of COVID-19, we can explore the virtual world of children’s stories – all free to read and many openly licensed. Some wonderful book and reading resources are listed below.

This week, OER Africa shares some resources we consider useful for institutions in the midst of current restrictions of movement and the requirements to introduce remote teaching in many countries due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We have selected resources for universities, school management teams, mathematics, reading and writing, as well as our most popular downloads over the past six months.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has spread, millions of learners and educational institutions globally have had to make rapid, unforeseen changes to how they run their learning programmes. Face-to-face teaching and learning have become impossible in many countries and there is uncertainty over when educational institutions will reopen their doors. This may have long-term effects on school programmes, examinations, and most importantly, learning.

OER Africa was very pleased to note that UNESCO OER Recommendation (40 C/32) was adopted at the 40th UNESCO General Conference in Paris on 25th November 2019. The formal Recommendation is yet to be posted online by UNESCO but the text can be found here. Approval of the Recommendation represents a significant recognition of the concept of open educational resources (OER) and its potential in education by governments around the world.