Open Educational Resources in Teacher Education: Awareness and Barriers among Teacher Educators and Student-Teachers in Koraput, Odisha

सार

Open Educational Resources (OER) are widely promoted as a route to affordable and equitable teacher education, yet little is known about how they are received in rural and tribal districts of India. This study examined the level of awareness of OER, and the challenges to their use, among teacher educators and student-teachers in four teacher-training institutions in Koraput district, Odisha. A descriptive survey with concurrent quantitative and qualitative strands was conducted with 25 teacher educators and 80 student-teachers recruited through convenience sampling. Awareness was measured with two researcher-developed, 17-item, five-point Likert scales; challenges were explored through open-ended questionnaires analysed by content analysis. Mean awareness scores were 66.72 (SD = 2.92) for teacher educators and 65.46 (SD = 6.97) for student-teachers, about 77–79% of the maximum possible score, and most respondents fell in the moderate band (68% and 65%). Teacher educators most often reported the time and effort needed to adapt OER (70%), lack of training and institutional support (60%), and doubts about quality (55%). Student-teachers most often reported doubts about the legitimacy of free materials (50%), difficulty navigating digital platforms (40%), gaps in regional-language and accessible content (35%), and limited devices or connectivity (30%). General awareness appears to have run ahead of the practical, institutional and infrastructural conditions needed for use. Implications for training, curated regional-language OER and institutional policy are discussed.