Presentation prepared by Rachel Prinsloo from Unisa for the OERu 2015-10 meeting of international partners. Uploaded with permission from the author.

1. Crafting the Unisa
Institutional Action Plan (IAP)

2. Macro Context
Globally, in the next decade, an estimated 40
million more youth will drop out and face an
uncertain future without adequate work and life
skills.
The EU/OECD projects the need for higher
education provisioning by 2030 to be 410 million
globally with the greatest growth trends in Africa,
Asia and the Caribbean, according to Titlestad’s
(2015).
Titlestad, G. (2015) Access, Equity and Quality: Envisioning the Future of Higher
Education in a Digital Age. ICDE Kick-off meeting, Paris, 25 March 2015

5. Purpose of the IAP Consultative
Framework
 Facilitate shared understanding of the
challenges and benefits of Unisa’s OERu
membership and contractual
obligations
 Articulate college positions and levels
of commitment – cross disciplinary
conversations towards inter-cultural
global conversations

6. The strategic intent and rationale for participating in the
OERu network remain compelling value propositions
Fully supporting the social justice mandate and imperative of
engaging in the global knowledge economy on African terms,
giving expression to the longer term vision of:
 Expanding the notion of education as a public good
through widening access (OERS and MOOCS) to more
affordable and globally recognised education (quality)
 Enhanced responsiveness to student preferences for
graduating from their institution of choice
 Consciously managing transformation and change at
systemic and practice levels to ensure cutting edge and
responsive academic programmes
 Participatory benchmarking of the curriculum, innovative
and more flexible stakeholder engagement

7. Alignment to future strategic intent and
planning imperatives
of Unisa (Strategic Plan 2016-2030).
 The African University, trend-setting comprehensive university
 Cutting-edge open distance e-learning (ODeL) institution
 A quality student experience to become a university of choice
 Contextually relevant, optimised centres of learning facilitation
 Transformed and diverse university attuned to national
development

8. Outcomes of Consultative Process
 Facilitation of structured dialogues and
grappling with the issues (strengthened
by the OERu August Input Survey)
 College level commitments to engage in
a systematic manner to create OERs for
the platform aligned to OERu and Unisa
strategic goals

9. Outcomes of Consultative Process
 Commitment by Executive
Management to support 2015 IAP –
project plan and budget supported
 Shared awareness of internal and
external systemic challenges and
identifications of agents to effect
realignment – policy, QA programme
approvals , accreditation, funding,
enrolment planning

10. Mindfully navigating the future

11. Critical issue for the way forward:
 Planned and sustainable curriculum
innovation, transformative
pedagogical practices
 Tracking efficiency improvements
for design and development,
impacts on funding frameworks

12. Critical issue for the way forward
 Unisa’s approach of “infused
curriculum innovation”
versus
 “Independent” business model
aligned to core business

13. Thank you for this opportunity!
We look forward to receiving your
comments.
And wish to invite partners to
design and develop OERS for OERu
qualifications.