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Open Education
Education is the future, and there is no reason why any child should not receive it.
Imagine a world where every child is studying something new everyday, thinking of new ideas and giving back in whatever minuscule way they can for the betterment of their society or just one person next to them.
There are many colleges and universities out there that are opening up their curriculum online, I found this link via digg which is a huge resource. That's all great and fine but do kids in Africa, India, South and Central America and any other part of the world where poverty is as common as not finding clean water to drink have access to the internet or these resources. NO!
How would the Open Education program work?
Open Education could be a program where opted in colleges, universities and schools would send their teachers and professors, who would volunteer if they want to of course, to any part of the world on a rotating basis and offer their knowledge or expertise to students who want to learn. The program could be divided up into levels where even first grade teachers could be part of a group that teaches kids in that age group and so on until you get to the level where the university level professors teach what they specialize in.
For different educational specializations or countries there could be many teachers from various parts of the world teaching the same subject and they could be sent on timetables according to their availability. The program would be completely flexible enough to accommodate the teachers and the students themselves. If at any point of time a specific teacher would not be able to make it for their schedule another one could be taken in its place.
Why would teachers and universities opt in?
Good question! As you know most of the open source software out there on the web is free and programmers do ask for donations or are supported by a company. For example Firefox is an open source browser but made $50 million last year from their tie up with Google. Open Education could be supported as well by donations and by companies who are willing to sponsor. You hear about the philanthropic efforts of individuals such as Warren Buffet and Bill and Melinda Gates who aim to give away almost all of their wealth to worthy causes. This could be one of these causes that they could support and they could only be a few of the people who would donate.
Every dollar donated would count and there would have to be complete and total transparency with funding and disclosure of funds.
Ok, you still haven't answered the question. Why would teachers and universities opt in? The same reason programmers and designers spend countless hours building something to only give it away free as open source software, except here it would be education.
Because its for the greater good and anybody or any institution would want to be a part of this effort as it would be completely by self effort and not coerced or rewarded. The traveling, food and accommodation at the place they would go to would be taken care of, by the donations, so there would be no out of pocket expense to the participating teacher. But that should be about it as once you start giving monetary reward for the effort the effort loses value and corruption will set in.
Think of it like a Teachers without Borders kind of practice. There are always a few people would do it just because it feels good to do so without any reward whatsoever.
What would they teach?
Anything under the sun. Where the need is most for a specific skill to set economy in motion or ideas in play the selected teachers would travel to that part and lay their skills out on the table for everybody to learn and take advantage of.
For example, there is a demand for African made hand baskets but the quality has been known to be bad and the raw materials are being exported to other countries for production thereby depleting income from workers in the homeland where the baskets originate. A teacher of quality control or weaving could come to this part in Africa and show them how to make a better basket thereby moving production back to the baskets homeland and improving earning capacity for the workers there and potentially drawing tourism as well.
image via sju.edu
Could anybody be a part of this program?
Sure, why not! Anybody with a skill to offer or teach could become part of the program and when the need arises and they are available to travel the said individual would be transported and basic living expenses would be taken care, which would be by donations from people like you and me, till time of return for the teacher.
I'm sure there are already programs like this in place but I think it needs to be done on a grander scale and now with the internet taking up more prominence in the structurally developed parts of the world there is no reason why something like this would not go a long way in making the world a better place in the future.
Your comments are welcome.
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In our gobal village we are all responsible for educating our children and this initiative is magnificent!
Lets hope we see more of this kind of stuff in the future.