 Hello. Good morning all. The topic of my presentation is called action. OER policy status in Nigeria. It is presented by Al-Qasim Hamisa-Abdu, coordinator of branch libraries in the seat in the Yusuf-Maitama University, Kano, Nigeria. So the background of this presentation is in the fact that OER is very important to the educational system of Nigeria, due to the fact that the educational system is constrained by lack of resources. And on the other hand, the system or the country cannot afford to import quality resources from abroad, possibly from Europe or from North America. And in addition to that, the capacity of the country in terms of infrastructure cannot allow it to produce quality resources locally. Why? Because the publishing sector in the country is so rudimentary. This is why OER are very important to the educational system and it can be used to mitigate the problem of lack of resources in the educational system, which limits access to education and also affects the quality of teaching and learning in the country. Perhaps these may be the reason why the Commonwealth of Learning has been engaging Nigeria or the National University Commission in particular for the development of OER in the country. The engagement culminated in 2017 into a draft policy, draft OER policy for the Nigerian higher education. So this work will try to trace the development of that policy and we will try to understand the standard or the status of the policy presently, where it is. What is a level of penetration and implementation of the policy in the educational system. With this, the audience will be able to understand the situation of OER in the Nigerian educational system and also the audience will be able to identify the area for collaboration and partnership with Nigeria so as to have a well-rounded development of OER in the world. The research store the analyzed data, it is a content analysis of document from Nigerian National University Commission and also another document from TED Fund. TED Fund and the National University Commission are very important in the Nigerian higher education. The National University Commission is responsible for monitoring and ensuring quality control within the of universities in the country and on the other hand, TED Fund is an agency created in order to fund or to finance among other things. Development of resources in the Nigerian higher educational sector so document from this institute from these agencies where analyze in order to understand or in order to have evidence of OER development in the country. So let us try to trace the development of the policy of the OER policy in the country. Beginning with the 2017 so we can say engagement or efforts to introduce OER into Nigerian educational system begun in 2017. When the policy makers in the Nigerian higher education attended a symposium on OER in the Republic of Mauritius. Immediately when they came back, the Nigerian National University Commission formed a committee, a high power committee to advise the agency on the development of OER policy in the country and immediately after forming the committee, the committee swung into action and came up with the draft policy for the Nigerian draft. OER policy for the Nigerian higher education, the policy was presented during the second world OER Congress in Slovenia, and it was praised very much. Then in 2018, there was stakeholders meeting to endorse to look at the policy and endorse the policy for implementation in the Nigerian higher education. The NUC, Nigerian National University Commission organized the meeting where vice chancellor and university librarians were invited to brainstorm and endorse the OER policy for implementation in the higher education of Nigeria. And within that year also a ranking, a system of ranking was introduced by the NUC where OER creation was considered for that ranking, so as to motivate and encourage universities to start engaging with the OER. That ranking was very instrumental in motivating Nigerian universities to start working for development of OER in the universities and also in 2018, the National Council for Education, which is the highest decision making body in the Nigerian education sector, met noted brainstorm and endorse the OER draft policy for implementation in the Nigerian education sector. Coming down to 2019, the National OER material development workshop was organized by also NUC where the decision makers from Nigerian universities and other higher education institutions were invited also to learn how to develop OER materials and take it back to their institutions. 2020 as we all know was overwhelmed by coronavirus pandemic, so we couldn't see anything very important to the development of OER in Nigeria on that year and also in the following year until in the year 2022 where the NUC also organized another workshop meeting which they titled meeting for mainstreaming OER in education institution. It is also high profile meeting also visis librarians and other key stakeholders in the educational system of Nigeria were invited to also brainstorm and try to find the way to mainstream OER into the higher education institution of Nigeria. And that meeting was attended was well attended and during the meeting it was reported about 153 Nigerian universities had already produced of OER. And it was expected during the meeting a repository which will be called Nigerian university system open educational resource repository was to commission. So this was what happened during the year 2022. So when all these engagement were from the national universities commission and you see on the part of tech fund which is a which is the major fund for resource development in the Nigerian higher education. We try to see if they have OER policy by studying a policy document which they produce and title guidelines for book development in book development in the Nigerian higher education. But analyzing and studying that document indicates that tech fund up to now have no any policy or program to support OER in the country. Although they support book resource development in the educational system which they at the end share it free of charge tonight Nigerian higher institutions that they have no any policy or there is no any spells out statement about the intellectual profite of the book. There was there was nothing like producing the books under CC under creative formal lessons that will make it OER at least so the books they produce the they produce it on the traditional copyright arrangement, although they share it free of charge to Nigerian higher education. So actually, this is a major area of concern. Tech fund as the fund as the funder for resource development by now they supposed to have an emulate from NUC how to develop OER policy or at least they should have an idea of supporting OER for the Nigerian higher education. So, our overall observations include the following and you see actually realize the importance of OER in the Nigerian higher education in earnest. They started work about it in earnest as far back as 20s 2016 17 they were working they were trying to see that OER is being mainstream in the educational system of Nigeria. But engagement with OER in Nigeria, even within even that that NUC engagement in most cases it stops at top of the hierarchy in most cases, the vice chancellors and university librarians were the ones who were invited to workshop or meeting about OER. There is very little or there is no evidence of OER activities at the bottom of the system. You hardly hear a conference about OER or related to OER. There are very few researches and scholarship at the bottom about OER. So the OER activities in the Nigerian higher education and in the country in general, it is up to now a high level engagement, which up to now is not is not coming down to the bottom of the system. As a result of that high level engagement by with with OER by NUC, you will see OER top in almost all the websites of the Nigerian education of the Nigerian universities. That option now where it is not clear if the Nigerian university system of a system of when educational resources repository is commission, it is not clear because the repository is not is not yet visible even on the website of the NUC. It is high time now to make sure to see that the repository is visible, it can be accessed from everywhere in the world. It is also observed that there is no synergy between institutions in Nigeria. More especially, there should be a synergy between NUC and TET fund in the development of OER that it appears there is no synergy between NUC as a regulatory agency and TET fund, which is a funding agency. So there should be there should be there should be a synergy between this agency for us to have a well rounded development of OER in the country. And finally ratification or final approval of the draft OER policy is not is not yet achieved up to now it is not clear there is no evidence that the Nigerian National Executive Council have there is no evidence if they have approved it at the final stage. So these are our observations. So what's the way forward? Actually, whether we like it or not, we believe that OER is very important to the educational system of Nigeria. So we shall try to propose. So here we are trying to propose some way forward for us to make sure that women's to train OER in the educational system of the country. One, there is need for the National Executive Council, which is the highest decision making body in the country to ratify the draft policy for the overall implementation of the OER policy in the country. With their ratification and the final approval OER policy will have will be will be so strong and implementation will be much easier with this political will. So, secondly, take one as the major founder of Niger of higher education in Nigeria meets to recognize and develop OER policy. They found development of resources in Nigeria and in most cases, they share the resources they developed free of charge. They found the finance production and finally share the hard copies or print copies freely to the Nigerian educational institutions. If they can share print copies freely, it will be more easier for them to make it digital so that everybody from anywhere in the world can be able to get the knowledge contained in the resources. And it will be much easier to cycle it all look and cranny of the country rather than if they make it a sprint resources, it will take time to reach all look and crannies of the country. And it will at times remain on news on the library's shelves. So it will be better if the telephone will realize the importance of making it OER to make it digital OER so that it can reach everywhere easily. It can even transcend the Nigerian boundaries and it will make it easier for other researchers for other scholars to remix it or repurpose the resource for higher for additional benefit. It is also our hope that there should be engagement with the OER in the bottom of the Nigerian educational system. It is good if the universities at their all level will start developing programs OER programs like conferences, like workshops, like awareness campaign. And it is also high time to start seeing publications and even journal titles about OER development in Nigeria. This is what this will boost the awareness of the practitioners and scholars about OER and it will boost the rate at which OER are used in the educational system of their country. It is also, it is also our hope that the partners development, development partners like Commonwealth of London, like UNESCO, and even William and Flora Hewlett. There is need for this institution to come into OER support in Nigeria, more especially by tradition OER development has been relying on support from development partners, more especially the work of William and Flora Hewlett is very well visible even in the United States. They support development of OER programs and resources. And even from the beginning OER were on support from donor agencies and other development partners. So it is our hope that we will start seeing such kind of such kind of effort and support from donor agencies from development partners locally and from abroad. This will, this will speed up the OER activities and OER development in the country. But government has a lot to do also, more especially as Nigerian educational system is being highly controlled centrally. There are agencies responsible for controlling all sectors of education in Nigeria. If this institution will have political and administrative will to support OER development, it will be also better for the country. So this is my presentation and I thank you for your time to listen to this presentation and it is my hope that the audience will, the audience appreciates the status of OER at least in the Nigerian higher education because in Nigeria, the OER activities are still restricted to the higher education sector or more specifically to the university system. So if this is the level of OER development in the university system, in the Nigerian university system, you will imagine, you can imagine what the OER or where you can find OER in other educational sectors like in the primary and secondary school sector and in other educational sectors. So it is my hope that the audience will try to look for how to partner with Nigeria in the development of OER, more especially in order to have a well rounded global OER development. Because without Nigeria in the map, we have a very dark spot on the map without Nigeria. So this is my take and I thank you all for your time. Thank you.