Philippine Commons

Note Verbale: Open education empowers
by Jaime N. Soriano, CPA, MNSA

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 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:

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.