Pakistan’s Punjab province launches open education platform | Tony Bates

"The province of the Punjab in Pakistan, through its Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB), has just officially opened an e-learning platform, called eLearn.Punjab, initially aimed at Grades 9-10 in k-12 schools, that at the moment lists eight science open textbooks, together with over 1,700 videos, 350 simulations, 475 animations, 800 graphics, and nearly 1,000 assessment questions. This is just the first phase and the aim is to expand into other grades and subject areas. They have scoured the world for appropriate open educational resources for this site. Materials are in English and what I’m guessing is Punjabi. Dr. Umar Saif, Chair of the PITB, states: ‘For the first time in Pakistan, we are making our textbooks freely available online, augmented with a lot of supplementary material. We have made this platform to also crowdsource content from our users, which will make textbooks richer and enhance the overall learning experience.‘ Comment ... Welcome to the future. I think we will see many more sites likes this being developed, especially for k-12/school systems, but also, more slowly, for higher education systems as well. Well done, Pakistani Punjab – great vision."