Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu on the importance of freedom

WikiEducator invites you to view the short video of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Chancellor of the University of the Western Cape in South Africa on the importance of freedom in education during the opening of the Digital Freedom Exposition, held in Cape Town, 2007.

The sharing of knowledge is not a new phenomenon. In our daily lives, we share knowledge freely, including:

• when a parent intervenes in the upbringing of child; or
• when a teacher presents a lesson;
• when a student uses what he/she has learned and adapts it to his/her local context.

Fortunately, when we share knowledge, we can still use it for our own benefit and use.

Knowledge grows with reuse. Therefore, it is considered sustainable and scalable.

Sadly, much of the world's knowledge is locked behind restrictive copyright provisions - and much of this knowledge is inaccessible and unaffordable, particularly for the majority of citizens in the developing world. Moreover, these copyright provisions have not kept pace with advances in digital technology.

For those of us who believe that education is a common good (and are interested in working together in the creation of free content for education), these advances in digital technology and collaborate authoring software are timely and welcome. WikiEducator is building on the experiences of the free software movement and a few smart licensing options designed to protect the freedom of content resources, to make considerable progress in achieving our #1 Strategic Goal: a free version of the education curriculum by 2015.