Mauritius to launch National OER Repository to educate society

Mauritius: A national Open Educational Resources (OER) repository will soon be set up to build and strengthen the capacities of stakeholders to find, use, adapt, and redistribute OER to improve access to quality education and training in line with the Sustainable Development Goal 4 focused on quality education.

In this context, training of Trainers’ workshop, aiming to build local capacity at the level of educational institutions for the robust implementation of OER while enriching the national OER repository, opened this morning at the MITD in Phoenix. The resource person is the Director of Education, Commonwealth of Learning, Dr Sanjay Mishra.

The event, a joint initiative of the Ministry of Education, Tertiary Education, Science and Technology and the Commonwealth of Learning, Canada, has as its objective to prepare a pool of experts who can undertake training and research in OER at different levels.

It also aims to assist the participants in understanding the history of OER and enable them to contextualise the knowledge and identify issues for the smooth implementation of the National OER Policy.

Present at the opening ceremony, the Senior Advisor on Education Reforms, Raj Dansinghani, recalled that Government adopted the National OER Policy to encourage a culture of OER and establish a framework to provide access to and allow sharing of educational materials.

The implementation of the OER, he said, demonstrates Government’s commitment to leaving no child behind and promoting equitable and inclusive access to education for all.

He also enumerated the objectives of the National OER Policy, adding that they encompass several areas, including the transformation of learning and teaching experiences, fostering a culture of OER adoption and integration, and guiding the development and review of OER.

He stressed that the value of quality education must be supported, adding that OER presents substantial opportunities for personal development as it engages community support and lifelong learning while ensuring that everyone has equitable access to necessary tools for success.

Furthermore, he pointed out that the training is a crucial step towards increasing accessibility to OER to educators and learners by providing them with adequate training and equipping them with the necessary skills to leverage technology in developing, sharing and enhancing the resources.