Open Educational Resources Spotlighted as Digital Public Goods at Digital Learning Week 2025
The transformative role of Open Educational Resources (OER) in shaping inclusive and equitable education took center stage during Digital Learning Week 2025 in Paris. On 3 September, experts from around the world gathered for the session “Open educational resources as digital public goods: implementing the Dubai Declaration through AI and emerging technologies” to explore how openness can guide education systems amid rapid technological change.
Discussions underscored that while regulation often lag behind innovation, OER provide a resilient framework for embedding equity, quality and participation in education. Speakers addressed key challenges including reliance on corporate platforms, fragmented repositories, and weak governance models. At the same time, they pointed to opportunities for reclaiming agency, strengthening digital sovereignty, and building shared digital ecosystems rooted in openness.
Opening the discussion, Zeynep Varoglu, Senior Programme Specialist at UNESCO, reminded participants that the 2019 Recommendation on OER remains a binding policy framework for Member States. Yet, she noted, “when the recommendation was adopted in 2019, no one anticipated that generative AI would transform the knowledge landscape within just five years.” This reality gave rise to the Dubai Declaration, which links the Recommendation’s five action areas with the new digital context.
From there, speakers turned to the question of agency in digital education. Tel Amiel, UNESCO Chair in Open Education Technologies at the University of Brasilia, presented data showing that most universities in Africa and Latin America depend on Microsoft or Google systems for their digital infrastructure. This, he argued, risks eroding sovereignty, since “the commercial sphere and the commons pull in different directions.” Picking up the same theme, Anne-Marie Scott, Vice-President of the Commonwealth of Learning, called for a stronger culture of ethical procurement. “If we can work out how to source tea ethically, we can certainly learn to procure technology ethically,” she said, urging educators and institutions to reclaim control over the tools they use.
Javiera Atenas, Senior Lecturer at the University of Suffolk, expanded the conversation by stressing that OER are not only about content but also about governance. She underlined the need to embed the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and the CARE principles (Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, Ethics) to build open ecosystems that are inclusive, sustainable and community-driven. “We have agency, we have self-determination, and we need to enable our learners to access knowledge in a democratic and equitable way,” she said.
The question of sustainability was further emphasized by Monge Tlaka, Senior Project Manager at OER Africa, who noted that many governments and institutions continue to “reinvent the wheel” by creating short-lived repositories. She challenged participants to reflect: “If you are working on open education, ask yourself: am I building a shared infrastructure, or just another isolated resource?” Her call echoed the broader consensus of the session — that without collaboration and shared infrastructures, openness cannot truly work.
The debate made clear that OER are not only a matter of freely available materials, but of sovereignty, sustainability and agency. By linking the 2019 Recommendation with the Dubai Declaration, participants highlighted both the risks of dependency and the opportunities for shaping digital learning as a public good.
Participants were invited to continue the conversation through the OER Dynamic Coalition portal, which gathers governments, institutions and communities to advance the implementation of the OER Recommendation worldwide.