Press Release
Universities in Africa to benefit from Open University teaching materials in new ‘Open Door’ initiative
16 November 2005
A new Open University scheme to support higher education in Africa starts its pilot phase this month. Through the aims of the pilot, which has been funded by the Department for Education and Skills, The Open University will make its course materials available to a group of African universities, under licence, but free of charge.
There is a huge shortage of teaching resources in universities in low income African countries. Professor Maureen Mackintosh, Open Door Project Leader for the Open University said: “Textbooks are frequently in desperately short supply. We are experimenting with a response that can potentially make a real difference at low cost.”
Low income Africa has been largely excluded from the global publishing market as the result of low purchasing power, high publishing costs and poor internet access. These factors generate huge disadvantage for people in this region hoping to progress through the higher education system. This new ‘Open Door’ initiative offers more opportunity to previously disadvantaged African students by allowing greater access to the teaching materials.
For many years The Open University has had requests from African universities for access to its published course materials - many of which are used in other UK university courses - and now with the UK government’s commitment to help to build up African higher education through additional funding, this pilot scheme has been able to come to fruition.
Phil Hope, MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills said: “I warmly congratulate The Open University on the launch of this pilot phase of the ‘Open Door’ scheme to make OU course materials available to low income countries in Africa and I am pleased that the DfES has been able to join with the OU to help make this possible. This initiative is a demonstration of DfES support for the development of higher education in Africa within the framework of our International Strategy and is a contribution of the implementation of the recommendations of the Commission for Africa.”
African partners in the pilot phase include Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, the Open University of Tanzania and The University of Zambia. Partners make their selections from course prospectuses and then materials are transferred institution-to-institution for print on demand locally.
Materials that will be included in the initial stage are expected to include undergraduate texts in:
- Science, including an internationally focused course in health and disease
- Social sciences, notably economics
- Mathematics and computing
Professional training materials will also be available for nursing, teacher training and business studies.
Open University courses are written with students from diverse educational and cultural backgrounds in mind; therefore the appeal and relevance should be of immediate value and allow partner universities to enhance their existing curricula quickly and effectively.
The strength of the scheme is in its simplicity; it has the potential to promote and enhance learning in a number of universities quickly and at relatively low cost. It targets those in greatest need of educational materials and provides higher education resources.
Many African universities rely on donated textbooks, which are often out of date. This scheme differs in that it gives the partnering academics more choice about which learning materials they can integrate into their teaching and by doing so support the development of an Africa-centric curriculum.
The scheme also opens the door to developing alternative approaches with a more localised interest. For example, projects can adapt the texts into a more local context, further ‘spin-off’ partnerships can develop, and working with African publishers to print locally. The first year pilot will test the scheme and address any possible problems prior to seeking second stage funding to expand the project to include more learning institutions.
The Open University has lengthy experience of working in partnerships; in this case the scheme was implemented because of a long standing link with Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone. Magnus John, Professor of Library Studies at Fourah Bay College has also worked for the Open University previously and this long term association meant he was ideally placed to support the initiative and promote it. Professor John commented: “At Fourah Bay we are teaching courses with no available course text books within the country. If text books were available they could only be used for reference. We think this scheme has the potential to enhance our courses immeasurably.”
The ‘Open Door’ project builds on The Open University’s active research and varied project work in Africa and encompasses the Open University’s mission, aims and expertise.
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