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With the age of information technology at the center
stage of human interaction, there is an emerging global consensus
for collaboration in providing access to learning and knowledge and
developing a wide range of educatinal resources in cyberspace that
are free and open for everyone to use outside of the traditional
models. It is referred to as “open education.”
The Cape Town Open Education
Declaration in September 2007 and now signed by over 1,500
individuals and more than 150 organizations all over the world urges
educators and learners participation in the open education movement,
and the promotion of open education resources and open education
policies (see www.capetowndeclaration.org).
Open education operates on
different frameworks, such as Open University, e-learning, open
content to wikis, e-books, legal commons or open coursewares. And
these methods are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Sir John Daniel, president and
CEO of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), in a speech before the
William Flora Hewlett Foundation Grantees Meeting in a symposium on
Open Learning Interplay at the Carnegie Mellon University on March
12, 2008, said:
“Open education broke open the
iron triangle of access, cost and quality that had constrained
education throughout history and had created the insidious
assumption, still prevalent today, that in education you cannot have
quality without exclusivity.”
“Open as to people, open as to
places, open as to methods, and open as to ideas. That is a good
framework to think about open education.” quoting and paraphrasing
a 1969 address of The Economist editor, Geoffrey Crowther, an early
advocate of open education whose speech was still probably written
in a typewriter.
In the first forum dubbed as
“Open Education: Are we ready and where are we?” held on April
23, 2008, the Philippine Commons and the e-Law Center of the
Arellano University School of Law advanced the idea that “open
education” should refer to any scholarly, academic or guided
initiative that promotes access to learning and knowledge in a free,
open and collaborative environment using the tools and
infrastructure of information technology.
Open education is an initiative
whose time has come.
In the words of Kristine Mandigma,
editor in chief of Vibal Foundation: “In leading economies,
technology and knowledge are the critical factors of economic
growth.” She emphasized though that innovation is the key.
Greg Moreno of Bayanihan Books
believes that open education would eventually fill the gaps in the
educational system as technology attempts to address the issue of
content quality and commercial viability.
Lawyer Michael Vernon Guerrero of
Philippine Commons submits that open education empowers people. He
thinks that open content is the first step toward collaboration as
international endeavors in this respect continue to grow, develop
and mature.
Miriam Coprado of the Department
of Education shares the view that while government continues to
pursue the integration of information technology in the educational
system, the contribution of the private sector remains a most
important element.
But the societal significance of
open education was best expressed by Siegfried Herzog, resident
representative of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in the
Philippines, during the forum when he said:
“Remember, knowledge is power.
Whenever access to knowledge is restricted, there is an issue of
power behind it—a ruling elite will control knowledge in order to
maintain power. If we truly believe that power should be vested in
people, not in elites, anything that increases access to knowledge
and deepening of knowledge is welcome. Open education is thus not
just a nifty tool to enhance skills. It is a way to build a freer
society.”
Certainly, open education
empowers because it is built upon a platform of collaboration, equal
opportunities, and open access to knowledge that could shift the
paradigm of conventional educational systems that are perceived to
be discriminating.
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