|CC BY-SA Commonwealth of Learning| UNESCO and Commonwealth of
Learning are two global organisations that are championing the
open learning cause and have just published the results of a
major survey: Survey on Governments’ Open Educational Resources
(OER) Policies. They sent out a questionnaire to all 195 UNESCO
member states asking them whether they had any policies
concerning the use of OER in the country's schools and
universities. Less than half (82) of these countries replied in
time but the results show that there are countries who are
taking open education seriously and beginning to form national
strategies around the open sharing of educational material.
Those who actually have a national policy for OER include South
Africa, China, Indonesia and the Bahamas with others, such as
Colombia, Uruguay, New Zealand and Lesotho, are in the process
of developing a policy and already have guidelines and national
initiatives. The report deals with the following issues: -
Nature and extent of OER activity per re