At the Dutch conference on IT in Education, the SURF "Onderwijsdagen", minister of Education Jet Bussemaker declared herself a strong supporter of sharing educational material. In fact, she has been propagating open and online learning via a four-year stimulation programme that she started in 2015. After 2018, she will double the yearly budget from 1 to 2 million euros.   

One of the reasons why she thinks sharing of educational material is important is that educators can build upon the work done by others, thus improving education. Personalisation and flexibility are keywords. Open Education should in her view become as normal as Open Data and Open Access nowadays. In line with that view, she warned that publishing online learning material should not become an exclusive activity of commercial companies.

She admits that many educators will need time before they are willing to share their material with the world, while at the same time it requires trust and confidence to use learning material created by someone else. However, she is convinced that this is the way to go. After all, she said: this is 2016!

More on Dé Onderwijsdagen (with probably a recording of this presentation in the very near future)