Education International Research
In the higher education sector, for instance, publishing power is becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of fewer private sector corporations. This has led to exorbitant rises in journal and textbook costs. One major scholarly publisher in particular, Elsevier, severely restricts the right to access knowledge by charging extortionate fees and generating high profits, often from publicly funded research.105 It is currently being boycotted by over 17,000 researchers, and university libraries from major institutions around the world are starting to cancel their subscriptions. UNESCO is about to adopt an Open Educational Resources (OER) Recommendation to address access to educational resources.106 As an official instrument, it will provide national governments with advice on OER policies and practices and ask countries to report on their efforts and progress. In 2016, EI introduced its Policy Statement on Open Access in Further and Higher Education and Research.107 The results for Asia-Pacific108 and Africa109 from a recent EI consultation on copyright systems reveal that the laws are outdated in many countries, hindering teachers from accessing and using important works. This is partly due to the growing commercial lobby, which promotes profitdriven copyright regimes. EI is currently advocating for broader copyright exceptions and limitations for education and research, as well as campaigning for an international World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) treaty110 that would promote cross-border collaboration and exchange in addition to ensuring more equal rights for teachers, education support personnel, students and researchers, no matter where they are in the world. Unions are also responding at the national level. In South Africa, for instance, SADTU is promoting open access to research by establishing its own universally accessible independent peerreviewed journal, the Journal of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union, in partnership with local universities.
Conclusions In the last four years, educators have observed worrying trends in education policies in the further and higher education sector that have obstructed equitable access and damaged overall quality. Governments around the world must recognise the importance of investing in quality public further and higher education and supporting equitable access by budgeting to make it progressively free. Furthermore, it is crucial to recognise that quality further and higher education and research depend on a foundation of dignified terms and conditions of employment and respect for and enforcement of professional rights. Academic freedom continues to be infringed upon due to both political pressure and casualisation — governments must prioritise its protection and recognise the crucial role it plays in fostering robust democracies.
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Tennant, J. 2018. Democratising Knowledge: a report on the scholarly publisher, Elsevier. Education International. Retrieved from: https://issuu.com/ educationinternational/docs/2018_eiresearch_elsevier_final_en See: https://unesco.ijs.si/project/unesco-recommendation-on-open-educational-resources/ Education International. 2016. Policy Statement on Open Access in Higher and Further Education and Research: https://download.ei-ie.org/Docs/WebDepot/ Policy%20Statement%20on%20Open%20Access%20in%20FHER.pdf Nobre, T. 2019. Copyright and Educational Activities in Asia-Pacific. Education International. Nobre, T. 2019. Copyright and Educational Activities in Africa. Education International. Retrieved from: https://spaces.hightail.com/space/B8sx4keGxH/ files/fi-69d077a2-b33c-4d0c-8fc9-a1d5660f11e8/fv-434c847f-0a36-44ad-9b77-0e180fac8840/Copyright%20and%20Educational%20 Exceptions%20in%20Africa.pdf For more information, see: https://worldsofeducation.org/en/woe_homepage/woe_detail/16238/“let’s-spark-a-global-discussion-on-copyrightexceptions-for-education-and-research”-by-david-edward