 Good day to you all. I'm sorry that I can't be with you in person in Papua New Guinea But since your conference is about distance education and Coles mission is to help people use Technology for learning. It's appropriate that we use media on occasions like this My topic today is celebrating open schooling Papua New Guinea is a strong exponent of open schooling through both the Open College of the University of Papua New Guinea and also the Ministry's Unit for flexible open and distance education So you know how to do open schooling and I'm not going to tell you how to do it But I'm going to try and put your work in the larger global context Coles is investing great effort in the promotion of open schooling under the dynamic leadership of Francis Ferrera and what you're doing in PNG is very important in that context. I Wrote a book about open schooling last year called mega schools technology and teachers Achieving education for all and it includes a profile of your good work in PNG So let me just mention some of the points that I made in that book The first is that whereas universal primary education Was at the top of the agenda in education for the last ten years Today the challenge is moving to the youth bulge Almost 30% of the world's population is under 15 and in Papua New Guinea Half of your population is aged less than 19 I'm not saying that the world has achieved universal primary education That's not true and it's not true in PNG Where although 90% of children make it into elementary school only seven percent of them complete the upper secondary level However, we cannot wait for the time when all children go smoothly through the school system from age seven We have to increase access and success at all levels of education simultaneously So let me concentrate on secondary education Worldwide there are 400 million children between the ages of 12 and 17 who are not in school And I'd estimate that about seven hundred thousand of them are in PNG Why is secondary education important for these youngsters? There are many arguments for secondary education, but the only one I shall use the day is That secondary education is the world's best weapon against climate change And that is because the most powerful driver of climate change is increasing population And PNG is one country where the population growth is high at 2.7 percent a year Now since the industrial revolution two centuries ago The world's population has grown by a factor of seven and on average Each human being makes seven times greater demands on the earth's resources than they did 200 years ago That's a 50 fold increase in the impact of humanity's Impact on the planet in two centuries Slowing population growth is one way of limiting that impact And women with secondary education have on average 1.5 fewer children than those without And a difference of only one child per woman means three billion more or fewer people on the planet by 2050 So secondary education for girls must be a high priority Expanding secondary education is a key priority for many developing countries including Papua New Guinea But that will not happen if we simply wait for more conventional schools to be built All alternatives must be exploited But of those alternatives open schooling is by far the most promising But I do not simply propose the creation and expansion of open schools As a separate and distinct element within the national school system Open schools should be seen as catalysts for integrating all elements of schooling Into an educational ecosystem fit for the 21st century And that includes the Ministry of Education, the teacher education institutions, and of course all the communities Open schooling can be integrated with other approaches To make them more cost effective and cost efficient And an integrated approach holds the promise of providing education for everyone That is better adapted to the needs of the 21st century It can blur the unhelpful distinction between formal and non-formal education It can build a bridge between knowledge and skills development And it has the potential to reduce the inequalities of access That are a big problem in most countries and I'm sure in yours And very importantly open schooling is less expensive than conventional schooling And that differential is steadily increasing The Commonwealth of Learning promotes the concept of an integrative open school That is placed at the heart of the whole school system In order to improve the quality and reach of that system To be a source of innovation and to act as a catalyst for reform UNESCO has made a list of what makes for quality schooling and effective learning Having open schools as a resource for the whole school system Can help the national school system with many items on this list Which are one, good learning materials Two, focus on the curriculum Three, regular reliable and timely assessment of learning Four, pedagogical materials for teachers Five, relevant content Six, structured teaching, direct instruction, guided practice and independent learning And lastly, larger classes Provided they're accompanied by better inputs such as assistance and teaching materials Having a good source of learning and assessment materials Is a particularly important foundation for effectiveness And that supports other elements of quality Such as a focus on the curriculum and pedagogical material for teachers Today, learning materials can be produced and shared in very modern ways As open educational resources And more generally, open schools can be 11 for the entire school system At the moment, Cole is working with open schools in six countries To produce 20 sets of instructional learning materials On the senior secondary curriculum Those countries are Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Seychelles, Trinidad and Tobago and Zambia And when the materials are available later this year They will be available worldwide and will be suitable for use in both open and conventional schools And I hope you will find them helpful in PNG Collaborative projects in OER curriculum development like this one Can help to create locally adapted e-learning materials of quality That are always in short supply So my message to you today is that we are seeing the beginnings of a process That will lead to much closer integration between open schooling and conventional schooling The open college of UPNG and FODE are tremendous assets to your country Your value will be appreciated more and more as PNG works at expanding secondary and tertiary education So I wish you well, I wish you an enjoyable conference and it has been a pleasure talking to you Thank you