Distributing OER in the developing world

This week, a story was sent around on the OKFN open education mailing list (subscribe here) about the devastation in Syria and how this is affecting the children. The context is that there are now about 7 million Syrian children living in refugee camps. Many children are therefore not receiving an education, either because the refugee schools are too full or it is very difficult to transfer in the chaotic system. Here is a quote from the article:

“I had top grades – I wanted to study communications at university. I was in my last two years of school [when the conflict broke out], but now I have no chance to finish my education,” he told us. “To get registered  in school here, they told me I must bring my school papers from Syria.  How  is  this  possible  when  my  school and house were completely destroyed? I told them I could sit an exam to show them, but they said they have  too many students already. I’ve tried to study by myself at home, but I  have  no access to books; I can’t learn anything. I had such hopes for a good future, but now they’ve been destroyed.“

The question was posed “Can open educational resources help and if so, how do they obtain them?”. This is a devastating story, but also brings to light broader questions of making open education accessible in developing countries amidst the many challenges, the most prominent one being the lack of infrastructure and internet access. This highlights crucial differences between developed and developing countries which should be taken into account when creating and distributing OER and assessing the potential impact of open education. In light of this, I would like to discuss some of our experiences at Siyavula, as we are also working within a developing country to deliver open educational resources.

In South Africa, we have an enormous range of contexts within which people are trying to learn. We interact with some schools where every child has an iPad, and yet most schools are severely under resourced, often without the basic infrastructure such as walled classrooms and toilet facilities, nevermind an internet connection.

(See the rest of the slides from this presentation here.)

How then do we deliver educational content to satisfy all of these learners’ needs?

Over and above making our content available on our websites and as ePubs, two forms of delivery are crucial to us in South Africa, and I would think this would apply generally to developing countries. These are print resources and mobile phones.

Yes, OER are often thought of as digital resources, but in a situation where there is no internet connection or devices to access the content, printed textbooks are key. At Siyavula, we make all of our content available on various digital platforms, but we spend a lot of time producing the printed textbooks.

Distributing print resources

We are in the unique position in South Africa where our government, the Department of Basic Education, has printed and distributed our textbooks to all learners in government schools. That is about 10 million books so far, at a cost of about $2 per book. The feedback we have had has been over whelming, as many learners never had any textbook before, and their teachers are most often under qualified. Have a look at our Siyavula Facebook page for some of the feedback that constantly streams in directly from learners who have received our textbooks for free.

The Department of Basic Education has printed and distributed about 10 million copies of our OER so far.

There are also other initiatives in South Africa to gain access to resources without having an internet connection. For example, Paperight enables any copy shop or business with a printer and internet connection to be turned into a print-on-demand bookstore where customers can legally obtain low-cost books. Our resources are available through Paperight at only the printing cost.Watch the following video which explains how Paperight works.

Another initiative is Breadbin Interactive which sources and delivers digital content via customised ‘kiosks’, called Toasters, throughout South Africa. People just need to plug in a flashdrive, burn the content to a CD, DVD, etc.

Students using a Toaster installed at Cofimvaba (photo credit: Obert on Twitter)

These are some ideas which could be pursued in other developing countries to deliver OER, especially where national printing and distribution is not feasible.

Mobile phones

Mobile phones are by far the predominant way of accessing content in developing countries. And we don’t mean smart phones, but low end feature phones, which are the ‘smart phones of Africa’ as Toby Shapshark, a journalist from Johannesburg, puts it. Watch the following short, but eye-opening TED talk by Shapshark as he explains how innovation in Africa is the purest form as it is out of necessity to solve every day problems, which subsequently benefit the world

Somewhat related, but just completely encapsulates how real innovation is taking place in Africa, is the story of 15 year old Kelvin Doe from Sierra Leone. Watch the video here. Africa is such an exciting place to be and to be challenged by!

At Siyavula, we have various versions of our content depending on what type of phone you are using. So, you can view all the embedded videos and interact with the simulations on a smart phone, making for an enriched experience, but on a basic feature phone, you just have access to the text and equations, etc are converted to images to make it less data heavy.

We have also made our content available over Mxit. This is a very popular chat room service in South Africa, used predominantly by the youth and especially in rural areas as it is so cheap. We have over 800 000 learners reading our content over mobile phones every month! This just highlights that these kids want to learn and they have just not had access to the resources before. The desire for learning is there – we just need to make sure learners can access the content they need.

Our content viewed on Mxit.

My take home message!

OER, even that produced in developed countries, needs to be optimised for this kind of delivery (especially mobile), if you want your content to truly be as accessible and open as possible! If OER developers and curators satisfy the most basic (open) formats for content delivery, then the content will have a much further reach.

By sharing some of our experiences, I hope that OER producers and advocates in first world countries will first and foremost consider the “constraints” of developing countries when producing OER, as this is where open education has the most potential to have the biggest impact.