From the first cohort, there has been high interest from developers and mentors from India to participate in OE4BW. Every year, dozens of Indians apply and after the selection process, 40 to 50 percent of all shortlisted projects are from India.
The areas covered are as diverse as the country itself, from the development of vocational skills, digital skills, women empowerment, gender justice, education for sustainable development, development of e-learning materials, and responsive classrooms, among others. The Indian projects also address Indian main educational challenges from NEP 2020, India’s National Educational Policy and ASER reports, such as revert low levels of children’s basic literacy and numeracy skills, high drop out rates, promote art integration, cross-disciplinary curricula, lack of infrastructure in rural schools and trained personnel, and now, integration of AI into the learning environment.
What factors or enablers can explain this continuous interest from India?
Dr. Rekha Chavhan, OE4BW Hub Coordinator and faculty at SNDT Women’s University based in Mumbai, state of Maharastra, recalls that it was because of “efforts initiated by Dr. Kamat and Dr. Shinde initializing an OER initiative in 2018-2019. They conducted a series of workshops for the teachers and developed skills among the teachers regarding development of OERs. Many of the participants who applied for OE4BW in 2019 attended those workshops at SNDT Women’s University. Later, a cascade model followed and whoever had applied as developers had a very good experience of designing the courses under OE4BW and that itself acted as a motivating factor for them to continue this journey”.
For Subha Das Mollick, OE4BW Hub Coordinator and ex-faculty Deptt. of Journalism & Mass Communication, Aliah University, the “reason for the popularity of OER4BW in India is manifold”.
First, the Indian academia perceives OER4BW as an “excellent opportunity to be a part of an international mentoring programme. It gives them a scope to make international connections in the academic circuit”.
Since the OER4BW guidelines are “broad and flexible, developers offer unconventional and out of the box projects that would not get much importance in the open learning platform run by the Government of India… projects like “Educational journalism in a Digital Era” or “Cinema in the classroom”, this last one widely applied and adapted by several teachers thanks to in-person workshops”.
Special mention to projects:
- Happy Schools: Education of 21st Century from Lenses of Happiness, developed by Dr. Vandana Punia, Dean and Head Faculty of Education, Guru Jambheshwar University, based in Hisar, state of Haryana. This ongoing project based on promoting in schools well-being, social-emotional learning, good health and overall success in life of students will be adopted by the state government and applied to the public schools.
- Malathi Veeramani, from the Ethiraj College for Women, based in Chennai, state of Tamil Nadu,, developed a Life science open textbook, Understanding Gene Regulation and Gene expression. The textbook uses simple language and interactive exercises created using H5P and repurposing, reusing and adapting open licensed content with proper attribution.
For Dr. Ajita Deshmukh, OE4BW Hub Coordinator, from the School of Education and Research, MIT-ADT University, based in Pune, state of Maharashtra, agrees on OE4BW’s contribution to a “participatory approach that will enable to reduce the divides in India, including digital, as well as related to regional, linguistic and other socio-economic aspects in a huge and diverse country”.
OE4BW has established itself as a complementary effort to the formal public digital platforms, such as DIKSHA and SWAYAM, promoting “themes that are not dealt with in mainstream education are addressed often. Developers are using this platform to create content after identifying the gaps”. Also these platforms promote access to digital resources and courses at free or minimal cost, instead the culture of sharing and adaptation of the OE4BW
Dr. Deshmukh highlights excelent projects in 2024 that uptake main challenges in India:
- Skill Development and Employability: Create resources focused on vocational and skill-based training aligned with India’s focus on Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India).
- Education for Sustainable Development:
- Develop materials that integrate SDG 4 (Quality Education) and other related goals, such as climate action and sustainable communities.Promote awareness of environmental sustainability through curriculum-linked open resources.Focus on creating educational resources based on the indigenous knowledge of tribal and rural populations.
- Provide culturally relevant content to engage learners in diverse communities.
- Microlearning for Global Citizenship: Encourage projects that bring global best practices to address India’s specific challenges, fostering a cross-pollination of ideas.
Not only do Indian projects fill gaps and bridge divides, innovation also strives in projects like Chemistry of carbonyl compounds course or Alternative Assessment Strategies.
Browse in OE4BW projects and get inspired and contribute to a better world. Share and apply to Call for Developers and Mentors for OE4BW 2025:
Deadline to apply: 10 January 2025
