São Paulo Legislative Assembly Passes 989/2011 OER Bill

On December, 20th 2012, the São Paulo Legislative Assembly (ALESP) approved Bill 989/2011 (OER State Bill), authored by state chamber representative Simão Pedro, establishing a policy whereby educational resources developed or purchased with government funds must be made freely available to the public under an open copyright license. Next, the Governor must sign the bill for it to become law. This is a result of almost 2 years of dialogue led by the OER Brazil-Project, supported by growing OER community in Brazil, and by folks at ALESP that understand that OER is a better policy for public spending. In June 2011, Simão Pedro in partnership with OER Brazil Project organized a seminar on Digital Teaching Materials, Open Educational Resources and Quality in Education at ALESP, when experiences from Brazil and around the world were discussed with the presence and intervention of educators, journalists, editors, lawyers and internet activists. It was the spark needed to gather more political support. The OER State Bill was introduced just after that. Simao Pedro saw that OER is a key to the modernization of education and the dynamic of technology entrance into the classroom, and saw the power of the market dynamic where the state is the biggest purchaser. In an interview published in the book Open Educational Resources: collaborative practices and public policy, Simão Pedro says of the impact of OER in society '… the teachers wins, they will have more incentives to improve their classes by adapting content, and will be able to produce and disseminate content to their peers. Students will have more interesting and efficient content. And also the government wins, it will save a great amount of resources. I think all this will reflect in a great advance in the quality of education...'”