 Honourable Minister Rajeshwar Jita, members of Parliament and the Diplomatic Corps, Madam Chair, Director-General, call focal point, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. It gives me great pleasure to be virtually present on this historic occasion and to bring to you warm greetings from the Commonwealth of Learning, or CALL, in Vancouver. I must congratulate Honourable Minister Jita for his vision and dynamic leadership and his team for making this vision into a reality. Created by Commonwealth Heads of Government, CALL is the only intergovernmental organisation of the Commonwealth located outside London. Our mission is to help Commonwealth Member States and institutions to harness the potential of distance education and information and communication technologies for expanding access to education and training. So it is appropriate that I use this familiar distance education technology to reach you. CALL has had a long association with Mauritius, which has been a pioneer in opening up educational opportunities for its people. When the University of London introduced external degrees and the notion of higher education without boundaries in 1858, its first external exams were held in Mauritius. Over a century later in 1989, CALL commissioned a report to advise the Government on how it might use distance education for human resource development in Mauritius, a report prepared by our former President, Sir John Daniel, whom many of you know. CALL is very grateful to the Government of Mauritius for its continued financial and intellectual support. Mauritius has been a key player in the development of distance education. It started out with the Mauritius College of the Air, followed by the Centre for Professional Development and Lifelong Learning, and more recently the Virtual Centre for Innovation and Learning Technologies at the University of Mauritius, which received the CALL Award for Excellence in Distance and Online Learning in 2010. We can see that Mauritius has taken a gradual and evolutionary approach to the development of open and distance learning. And the Open University of Mauritius model that has emerged is specific and relevant to its needs. The technologies used to offer distance education over the years have changed from print, radio and TV to virtual and online learning. It is significant that the Open University of Mauritius is being launched in the 21st century to cater to the needs of the new learner who Mark Prensky has described as a digital native. The digital native is the young technology savvy learner who has the mindset and motivation to learn in diverse circumstances and environments. So what do these learners want? Prensky interviewed 1000 American students and came to the conclusion that these learners did not want to be lectured to. They wanted to work with their peers, cooperate as well as compete with them and preferred learning that was relevant. The use of various technologies, especially mobile devices, can help us cater to the preferences of these 21st century learners. Second, the 21st century university also needs to cater to skills development. Unemployment is a global challenge. About 45% of the world's young people, many of them girls and women, are without work. What are the skills required for employability? A recent study interviewed employers in five cities in South Asia and two clear themes emerged from this study. The first is the importance of non-cognitive skills such as leadership, communication, honesty, ethics, teamwork and flexibility, which we sometimes also refer to as 21st century skills. The second is the importance of being able to learn and the need for critical thinking and analytical skills. This is a very important finding. Our educational system has always laid a greater emphasis on developing cognitive skills. We can see that employers in the 21st century are increasingly stressing the need for non-cognitive skills as well. Finally, the 21st century university must be able to offer a diverse range of courses to address the needs of the lifelong learner. It would be impossible for any single institution to develop all such courses single-handedly and they would need to collaborate with others. The Open University of Mauritius has licensed the Commonwealth Executive MBA and MPA program to offer world-class professional education to its students. Mauritius is also an active member of the call-led Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth or WASC and the lifelong learning program for entrepreneurship development for women. Call will continue to further strengthen such collaborations and partnerships. The Open University of Mauritius is all set to become a world-class institution of the 21st century. Call will be ready to accompany it on this journey. Let me wish you every success as you go forward and thank you very much for your kind attention.