Philippines organizes an OER Courseware Development Workshop

An Open Education Resources (OER) Courseware Development Workshop was held in Manila, Philippines from 28-29 January 2016.

The workshop was organized by UNESCO and the Southeast Asia Centre of Lifelong Learning for Sustainable Development (SEA CLLSD) as part of efforts to implement the 2012 Paris OER Declaration.

UNESCO recognizes the potential of Open Educational Resources (OER) to widen access to education at all levels – both formal and non-formal, in a perspective of lifelong learning – and to improve both cost efficiency and quality of teaching and learning outcomes.

The two-day activity, funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, follows up on the National Consultation Meeting on OER-based Teacher Training co-organized in October 2015 with the Southeast Asia Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED).

Project Task force

A Philippine Project Task Force with a Technical Staff for UNESCO project on Open Educational Resources in the Philippines was created and formalized with a Commission on Higher Education Special Order from the Office of the President of the Philippines. The order designated a chairperson from the Commissioner on Higher Education (Commissioner Minella Alarcon) and the Executive Director of UNESCO SEA CLLSD (Dr. Lucio Sia) as Vice-Chairperson. Technical Staff members are experts from the Commission on Higher Education, Southeast Asia Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO), the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) and the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU).

The task force and the course design team have developed two pre-service teacher education courses Education Technology 1 and Education Technology 2 which will be offered online as open educational resources, and piloted from June 2016 to March 2017.