The Future of Education

The use of Open Educational Resources in the teaching and learning of various subjects is a relatively new phenomenon in Kenya. With the advent and subsequent liberalization of ICT , material developers are subsequently shifting away from the traditional modes of material development in the form of textbooks and other “canonical “ formats which require the teacher  to use them as they are handed down without any input or modification. The Open Resources for English Language Teaching (ORELT) is one such example. This paper reports the findings of a baseline survey conducted in Kenya with a view to finding the prospects of using online Open Educational Resources to enhance learning in Kenyan ELT classrooms, the perceptions of the teachers and students on the use of such resources, and the potentials pitfalls of the introduction and use of such resources. It reports that whereas teachers are ready to embrace the use of open resources, they have varying perceptions on the suitability and potential efficacy of open resources in Kenyan classrooms which in many cases are at variance with those of the students. It also reports that such perceptions would constrain the implementation of ORELT programmes in Kenyan schools due to a myriad of attendant and tangential problems and obstacles.