In an effort to expand the frontiers of knowledge among students through OER, the IDE, with the support of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), has organised a series of workshops to sensitize academic staff on the potential benefits of OER-based programmes to widen access to higher education. Effort has been made towards an enabling environment, through the formulation of an institutional OER Policy since March, 2016. As such the intended objectives of this paper are to: (i) analyse the contextual factors that are critical for mounting an OER-based professional educational leadership programme; (ii) examine opportunities and challenges during the process of developing an Institutional OER Policy; (iii) exemplify how new OER policy directions can inform the implementation of an OER-based professional programme to enhance the quality of Open and Distance Learning. // Paper ID 55