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Literacy lies at the heart of UNESCO’s concerns and makes up an essential part of its mandate, being entwined with the right to education set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. These concerns have to do with promoting the meaningful acquisition and application of literacy in laying the basis for positive social transformation, justice, and personal and collective freedom.

The purpose of this study is to explore the status of the creation, use and/or management of open education resources (OER) in Kenya. OER, which to a large extent depend on access to Information Communication Technology (ICT), are seen by proponents as offerring certain opportunities to improve access to and quality of education.

The Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) Toolkit is intended for use by Ministry or Department of Education staff, donor staff, practitioners, and professionals in the field of education development. The document, in 12 sections, seeks to summarize a large body of research in an accessible manner.

Quality education should be delivered in the language spoken at home. However, this minimum standard is not met for hundreds of millions, limiting their ability to develop foundations for learning. By one estimate, as much as 40% of the global population does not have access to an education in a language they speak or understand.

National language policy mandates use of the language of the catchment area as the medium of instruction in Grades 1 to 3; in practice, however, English is used extensively as the medium of instruction even in Grade 1 classrooms. The national education agendas are motivated by economic progress and social advantage.

This report assessed school- and community-based reading. The Stanford-led team conducted a randomized control trial of a literacy intervention in Rwanda to determine whether programs aimed at families and communities had an impact on children's reading --above and beyond-- the traditional approach of training teachers.

This study was conducted as part of the OER for Skills Development project of Commonwealth of Learning (COL), supported by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The objective of the study was to collect baseline data from Commonwealth institutions with respect to the development, use and reuse of OER; the availability of support; and challenges faced in fostering the use of OER.

Open Educational Resources (OER) offer a powerful means of expanding the reach and the effectiveness of education worldwide. For this reason, COL and UNESCO co-organised the World OER Congress in 2012 in Paris, which resulted in the OER Paris Declaration: a statement urging governments around the world to release, as OER, all teaching, learning and research materials developed with public funds.

The language environment in the Eastern and Southern Region of Africa is rich and dynamic. Many African languages, including Amharic, Kirundi, Swahili, isiZulu, Kinyarwanda, Chichewa, Luganda, Kikuyu, Malagasy, Oromo, and Somali are spoken as mother tongues by millions of African citizens. Some may also serve as regional and national languages.

The Impact of Open Licensing on the Early Reader Ecosystem examines how to use open licensing to promote quality learning resources for young children that are relevant and interesting.