 Hello everyone and a warm welcome to the formal handover ceremony for Aptis Devices to the Bahamas. I have the privilege to present Professor Asha Kanwar, President and CEO of the Commonwealth of Learning for her address. Honorable Minister and friends in the Bahamas, greetings from the Commonwealth of Learning. I so wish we could have had this in your beautiful country because the last time we were there was when the Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers was held in 2015. But even though we haven't physically been there, several activities have been going on. In fact, last year, Minister, you will be pleased to know that we held a Caribbean-wide event to train mid-career women and teachers in artificial intelligence to develop chatbots. And at the end of three days, they actually did that. More recently, we've been working with several institutions and ministry, in fact, the Ministry of Agriculture and Marine Resources. We have this very good program called the Lifelong Learning for Farmers, which actually leads farmers towards livelihoods and enhanced economic opportunities. And it's going on very well in 11 other Commonwealth countries, and now it started in the Bahamas as well. And we ran an ag MOOC in the Bahamas, which is now becoming a model for other Commonwealth countries because it's worked so well. There was another MOOC which we offered for training teachers because once this pandemic happened and people had to pivot quickly to online learning with Athabasca University. And we've been doing a several series of these, and I think you'll be pleased to know that 189 teachers have benefited from these MOOCs. With the Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute, we've also done a capacity building exercise in online training of teachers in how to offer effective online education. So I think a few activities are happening. And all these are happening because of the strong support that we get from your ministry. So we are very grateful, honorable minister. This is strong financial and intellectual contributions that we receive from you. I think the Bahamas has been particularly consistent and we really value that because it enables us to do our work with greater confidence. Now, today we are talking about the Aptus device. We know how Hurricane Dorian created such devastation last year. And at this time, we felt we had to do something. And we heard that 15 schools were really impacted by this disaster. And how could call do anything to really support you? Now, Aptus, as you know, is a low cost device that allows educators and learners to access digital content without any need for grid electricity or connectivity as such to the internet. And this mini server operates on a battery which can be easily recharged using solar chargers or even electric power. And thousands of books and videos can be uploaded on this little device. And we call it a classroom without walls that can be accessed by any learner with a mobile device, tablet or even computer. So what we did is by working with your officials, we have now curated content aligned to your curriculum and loaded it on this device, which is already in the Bahamas. And in addition, we have loaded a whole lot of videos, especially in difficult subjects like maths, et cetera, from the Khan Academy, then simulations for science experiments, et cetera, which students find very interesting. In addition, we feel that for this content to be really valuable, your teachers must develop their own content, contextualize it and upload it on this device. So this is going to be an ongoing process. And we will continue to build the capacity of your staff to be able to do this. Unfortunately, it will still have to be done online until, you know, all those restrictions and lockdowns are lifted. This device has worked very well, you know, when Cyclone Geeta hit Tonga two years ago. The minister had asked us to deploy this in some of the atolls and it worked well for secondary schools. It's worked well in Pakistan, it's worked well in Fiji, Kiribati and other island states. So hopefully, this will be the start of a kind of scale of this device. Let's see how it works in the two islands that it's destined for in the first instance. So Honorable Minister, it's an honour for me to formally hand over 30 Aptus devices and 300 tablets to you as a very small token of our solidarity and support. We have prepared a set of videos to train your staff on how to use and maintain these devices. And there will be a help desk here at Paul, which will be on Paul for any time the staff needs any support or help in dealing with these devices. In addition, Honorable Minister, before I conclude, I wanted to also say that during this pandemic, we partnered with Coursera to offer free licenses for workforce recovery programs. And they started by giving us 10,000 licenses and then they've increased it to 100,000 because call works so well and hard with that. And we offered it in 49 countries. In fact, you'll be pleased to know that the biggest uptake has been in the Caribbean. Diana has enrolled 30,000 unemployed citizens, followed by Barbados, Grenada and St. Lucia. We haven't had those numbers. We've had a few numbers from the Bahamas. But I would like to make that offer and renew that offer once more, that if there are people who need training and reskilling for this new world, this is an excellent resource because it offers more than 4,000 courses from some of the top universities, Yale, Stanford, Michigan, etc. And one of these licenses is actually worth $400, but we've got them free. So nobody has to pay anything. And if there are enough people in the Bahamas who are willing to undergo this training, it'll have to be done fairly quickly because then the licenses expire at the end of March. But even then they can generate certificates if they successfully complete the courses. And the courses can be anything related to technology, to instructional design, anything. It's a very nice repertoire of courses in professional fields. So if you could give us any number of people, we are happy to accommodate them. If it's 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 who are in need of scaling, all we need is their information and their email. And we will send an invitation to them to make use of these courses. I really think it's a very valuable thing. And many people have benefited from them. Some people have already got promotions. Some people are getting jobs. So this might be something useful to consider Honorable Minister. And then, of course, my final comment would be that the pandemic is one. The hurricane last year was another. And in future, there can be any number of climate related or health related or social, political disasters that we might have to face. And we do need to build resilient education systems. We are providing targeted support to countries. Dominica is one of them. So if there is anything we can do, Honorable Minister, to further your agenda, we are here to provide all possible support. And we are experts in distance and online learning. And we can provide any kind of support that you need. So please reach out to us via your organization and we work for you. So on that note, thank you so much for taking the time to be on this call. It's good to see you. And I'm looking forward to the time when we can actually meet in person either here in Vancouver or in the Bahamas or any other part of the Commonwealth. So thank you very much, Minister. Thank you, Professor Kenmore. It is our great pleasure to introduce the Minister of Education, the Bahamas, the Honorable Jeffrey Lloyd. Dear Minister, welcome. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And it's a great pleasure to join with you this morning on a privileged occasion to be the recipient of this outstanding gift and offer. And Professor Asher, I wish to begin by extending our gratitude on behalf of the Ministry of Education in particular, but the people of the Bahamas for this most gracious gift that the Commonwealth of Learning has provided and is enabling us to meet these, what has been described as unprecedented challenges here in this 21st century, in particular in the 2019 and 2020 in our country. I am joined by a number of our senior managers of the Ministry of Education and they share, I'm sure, my deep sense of gratitude and appreciation and continuing regard for the excellent relationship that we have with the Commonwealth of Learning and the incredible benefits that you have provided to us over these many years in assisting our educational professionals to meet the challenges but also to help them realize their highest aspirations and educational achievement, both in terms of their own professional advancement and development, but also for the benefit of our people. You know, 2020 has been a unique year for the world. However, as unique as it has been for the world, it is even more unique and perilous for us here in the Caribbean because in addition to the pandemic which visited us beginning last December, all the way into what we are now confronted with, we in the Caribbean are particularly vulnerable and have been, unfortunately, victimized by a number of additional hazards and we call them unwelcome to guests who come by every single year, blazing a trail of destruction and devastation upon our countries, leaving many times incalculable disruption in our lives. Fortunately for the Ministry of Education, in 2019 we launched a virtual school which I have described as a godsend because within a day or so we were visited by a most devastating hurricane in the name of Dorian. In fact, so devastating that the United Nations Secretary General, Mr. Antonio Guterres, described it as a category from hell, left in wake, as you noted, two of our islands, Grand Bahama and Abaco, on which sits our second and third largest population centers, both in terms of our demographic as well as our student population, eliminating 20% of our economy and inflicting some three billion dollars in damage. But thankfully because of the virtual school, we were able to provide continuing educational services for those students. But as you indicated so brilliantly and insightfully, Professor, this is a time in which online learning now has become the feature of the modern educational apparatus. And I don't see personally and I think our team shares the view that we are not and the world is not going back, not only from an educational standpoint but now in all other subdivisions and dimensions of human existence, you will find that technology and virtual or online engagement will become a featured part of our existence, whether in employment or in social engagements and otherwise. This new reality has required of us in the Ministry of Education and I am grateful and proud of and highly inspired by the leadership of our team led by our Permanent Secretary, Mrs. Lorraine Amburster and our Director who joins us today, Mr. Marcellus Taylor, for the creative adjustments that they have had to make literally on the fly in terms of continuing to assist our students who many of whom would be vulnerable to the disruption that we have experienced because they didn't have or don't have devices or don't have internet access or both or, you know, environments that are not necessarily the most excellently conducive to educational excellence. As a result of that, your contribution by these devices is most timely because in Abaco as the district superintendent, Mrs. Russell who is on this line now can share, there is still a struggle to provide the basic amenities by way of facilities and infrastructure which means that many of those students who ordinarily would have probably been able to enjoy the use of the internet cannot now because power, energy is not now presently available or if it is, it is spasmodically so. But nevertheless, we soldier and carry on making the best of the circumstances, meeting those needs, collaborating with our stakeholders and making adjustments as is necessary. And again, your very well considered and most timely intervention in this gift of yours is most welcomed. And again, cannot more than emphasize the gratitude that we share and the appreciation that we have for it. The world over now speaks of a change in the way we think, which of course must lead to the way we act. You will find commentators, I refer recently to Jack Kelly who is the founder of We Cruder who said in a recent Forbes magazine article that because of COVID-19, but in our case the Bahamas because of our vulnerabilities being as they say in Death Valley, the path of hurricanes almost every year once they leave the west coast of Africa, they seem to have a beeline for the Caribbean states. Because of that, we will have to change the way that we think and the way we act and what would have worked in the past simply may not work in the future. And everybody I think now recognizes the radical seismic shift that the world is undergoing on a shift I don't think is going to ever return to whatever someone may call normal. I consider it to be a new reality. One of the things that we have always remarked in us in education, the director myself and others is that because of COVID, it has exposed or emphasized some of the inadequacies that education has unfortunately either overlooked or has been tepid in its response over the years. But now because of COVID and because of Dorian, because of other hurricanes, we have had some serious ones since 2016, Matthew and Irma and others, we have got to accelerate our response one but also the development of a new way of delivering education. I am heartened by the gift of I think the Coursera and the licenses that through you would be made available to our Bahamian citizens. You can put my email and name down right away, professor, as a recipient because when you talk about Harvard University and other schools of academic excellence, proficiency, stellar achievement over the many decades and courses that are being offered for free with certification, I am sure that there are many thousands of Bahamians who would be more than delighted to participate in an opportunity for upskilling. I want to say especially a gratitude on behalf of our teachers that you have helped to train. As you know, in addition to our students, many of whom can certainly be a little bit more adaptable than say us adults, this pandemic and these hurricanes have caught us a little bit off guard. We have had to upgrade and activate our technological skills much more quickly than probably we would have liked and many of us would feel comfortable with. But because of you and your team, we have been able to bring our people, our staff, our educational professionals up to a standard of I think proficiency, acceptable levels of proficiency and they will continue to master that effort over these next coming months and years. So I again want to express my deep gratitude and appreciation and great honor in having this wonderful relationship we have with you and the Commonwealth of Learning. I am sure that there will be many more opportunities for us to collaborate, for us to further invite your intervention into our ongoing educational development here. We in the Bahamas, unlike many Caribbean countries, in addition to the unique circumstance of just being in the Caribbean, we have well over 17, 18, 20 population centers, districts, which many times have their own cultural nuances and but nevertheless deserve to be given as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number four states opportunities for equal and equitable access to quality education, whether it's in preschool or all the way up to tertiary levels. And because the world changes and is changing so rapidly, the promotion of lifelong learning, which means that there were persons more in the afternoon of their lives like me and the noon time of their lives like the director still must continue to learn, relearn, acquire new skills and continue to be responsive to the subordinate staff or those who we are privileged to serve by way of mentorship and leadership. So we have an extraordinarily daunting in my mind task. I see it more, however, as great precious opportunities to meet challenges which I think can advance the cause of humanity with great efficiency over the coming years and decades. So please accept our thanks, share it with your team at the Commonwealth of Learning, Vancouver. We look forward to seeing you somewhere as you say on the planet and would be more than happy to welcome you to the Bahamas at any time of your choosing. Know that our borders are open. You are welcome to come and join us. I understand today that American Airlines has now increased their flight offerings to the Bahamas to five when it would per day when it was only one up to yesterday. So there are more than sufficient opportunities I think for you to jump on the plane and come and be with us and let's have our further discussions and see how we can meet the needs of our behaving people and others around the world. Thank you so much and God bless you. Thank you Honorable Minister and thank you Professor Kenmore. And this brings us to the close of today's ceremony. Thank you for participating. Goodbye.