A milestone in the achievement of UNESCO’s Sustainability Goals, Education for All (SDG4), was passed when the organization’s recommendation for the implementation of Open Educational Resources (OER) was uniformly adopted in 2019. Now it is time to move from the awareness of OER to their mainstream implementation at all levels, micro, meso, and macro, including all stakeholders, such as governments, institutions, academics, teachers, administrators, librarians, students, learners, and the civil service. The OER Recommendation includes five areas: building capacity and utilizing OER; developing supportive policies; ensuring effectiveness; promoting the creation of sustainable OER models; promoting and facilitating international collaboration; monitoring and evaluation.OER are valued as a catalyst for innovation and the achievement of UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of education for all, lifelong learning, social justice, and human rights. The implementation of the OER Recommendation will contribute to the achievement of several other SDGs. Because access to quality OER concerns human rights and social justice, this recommendation is vital. In 2020, the effects of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic clearly demonstrated the importance of opening up education and the access to internationally recognized, qualified learning resources. This article describes and discusses how the promise of resilient, sustainable quality education can be fulfilled in the new normal and the next normal.
Open Educational Resources as a Catalyst for Innovation and Lifelong Learning: A Question of Human Rights and Social Justice