Brussels, 22/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - Europe's schools and universities risk losing ground against their international counterparts if they fail to make the most of the digital revolution. This will be one of the themes addressed at an event promoting “open courseware” - free-to-use educational material for teachers - in Ljubljana on Wednesday 23 April. Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education will take part in the event, together with Jernej Pikalo, the country's Minister for Education, who will unveil a new “Opening up Slovenia” initiative to promote open educational resources. “I am delighted that Slovenia has adopted a national strategy to promote open educational resources. This complements the Commission's own 'Opening up Education' initiative”, stated Vassiliou, who also explained that their shared objective is not to replace traditional textbooks or face-to-face teaching, but to make the most of the opportunities created by digitisation and new technologies. The Commissioner added that, “Europe cannot afford to lag behind its international rivals if we want to ensure our young people have the skills needed in the modern world”. She said that she hoped that this Slovenian initiative is successful and inspires similar schemes in other member states.
During the conference, the Commissioner is also expected to emphasise the potential gains for education in terms of quality and access that will result from a stronger uptake of open educational resources and practices. A nationwide platform aimed at increasing the uptake of open educational resources and courseware is at the heart of “Opening up Slovenia”. The platform involves all Slovenian universities, as well as compulsory and vocational education institutions, and partners from research and industry. The idea is to create an open educational system in parallel to the formal one, and to exploit all aspects of open education. In an effort to publicise the advantages of Massive Open Online Course (MOOCs), the Commission launched the OpenEducationEuropa.eu portal last September. This provides access to more than 500 MOOCs provided by European institutions. This number represents 20% of the courses available worldwide. The number of European MOOCs has increased by 55% in the past six months. (IL)