The Key Note covers a brief history of higher education in Africa; the impact of funding on the purpose of education; the debates about the purpose of higher education within the global knowledge economy; and the possible role within all of this of OER Africa and of Open Educational Resources. more

A keynote address by Catherine Ngugi at the Open Learning Conference 2009 in Nottingham, UK, November 2009. The focus of this address was that OER presents an opportunity to overhaul how we think about and practice higher education - and how education as a collaborative endeavour - a cornerstone of the OER movement - is far more likely to result in success than going it alone. The video... more

OER Africa is nascent project currently being implemented by the South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE) with support from the Hewlett Foundation. In devising a Plan of Action for OER Africa the working group has determined that there is a need to find out just how OER might contribute to the needs of Higher Education Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa. This research study... more

African higher education institutions seriously structurally under-funded for the core function they are expected to discharge. Therefore, corresponding paucity of institutional and individual capacity to teach in many domains of higher education. Too few learning resources for learners and lecturers in African universities, and many of those available are too expensive to be purchased by... more