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Open education resources are likely to have a measurable effect on the promotion of human resources’ quality of OECD and non-OECD countries and the achievement of significant developmental outcomes.A Blog Article by Dimitrios Koumparoulis.According to the World Bank, “[m]illions of young students in low and middle-income countries face the prospect of lost opportunity and lower wages in later life because their primary and secondary schools are failing to educate them to succeed in life,” as its press release argues. Warning of a “learning crisis” in global education, the 2017 World Bank report on education posited that schooling without learning was not just a wasted development opportunity, but also a great injustice to children and young people worldwide.In its World Development Report 2018 entitled “Learning to Realize Education’s Promise,” the World Bank suggests that, “without learning, education will fail to deliver on its promise to eliminate extreme poverty and create shared opportunity and prosperity for all. Even after several years in school, millions of children cannot read, write or do basic math. This learning crisis is widening social gaps instead of narrowing them. Young students who are already disadvantaged by poverty, conflict, gender or disability reach young adulthood without even the most basic life skills.”Likewise, according to the results of the UNESCO research report entitled “Introduction to MOOCs: avalanche, illusion or augmentation?” from 2013, “[t]eachers have perhaps the most powerful impact on the quality of student learning. However, many countries, particularly the developing countries, are facing an acute shortage of qualified teachers, while serving teachers are paid poorly (and sometimes irregularly) and, because of the scant qualifications needed to enter, suffer from low social and professional status.”As the associated article of the European Parliamentary Research Service Blog states, “[t]he potential of ICT for modernization of education and training” could, potentially, close social gaps and enhance the economic growth among countries based on the expected benefits of online education: “Open and flexible learning opportunities: OER facilitates informal and lifelong learning, and can bring learning opportunities to disadvantaged and excluded groups of learners; Increased efficiency and quality of learning resources: teachers have easier access to high-quality learning resources; collaboration and sharing has the potential to further enhance the quality of learning resources and to foster pedagogical innovation due to exposure to large communities of learners and educator; Cost-efficiency: OER save course content development time and money, and reduce duplication; they promote inter-institutional collaboration and sharing.”However, the 2017 World Bank report notes that significant progress can be made if "school education becomes a priority for leaders."Written by Dimitrios KoumparoulisEdited by Pablo MarkinFeatured Image Credits: OER14_responses, April 29, 2014 | © Courtesy of E Livermore/Flickr.[cite]