 Greetings from the Commonwealth of Learning. I must apologize for not being there personally. But since my topic today is online and distance education, this is a good demonstration of how technology allows me to make a virtual appearance. I'm very grateful to Dr. Michael Bradshaw and the organizers for giving me this opportunity. But let me first introduce you to my organization, the Commonwealth of Learning or CALL, as many of you will know us. CALL is Intergovernmental, established by Commonwealth Heads of Government. We are based in Vancouver, Canada and have a regional office for Asia in Delhi. So what does CALL do? CALL's mission is to help Commonwealth countries to harness the potential of distance education and technology to enhance access to quality learning that leads to development. Every year the Commonwealth identifies a theme. This year it is a young Commonwealth. And significantly 60% of the population of the Commonwealth is under the age of 30. In 2013, 75 million youth were unemployed, accounting for over 12% of global unemployment. This magnitude of youth unemployment has resulted in a greater demand for knowledge and skills that must lead to livelihoods. As governments and policy makers seek to expand the coverage of education, reduce costs and improve standards, it is clear that alternative approaches are needed. In the current economic climate it is unlikely that traditional brick and mortar solutions will be the only ones that will be followed. As a response to the growing need for affordable quality education, we are seeing an increasing demand for distance and online learning. The rising demand for higher education has given rise to a range of new types of providers, private providers, cross-border online and distance education institutions. The success of the Open University in the UK captured the imagination of policy makers around the world, but particularly in developing countries. In the Commonwealth, which has 53 member states as you know, there were only 10 Open Universities in 1988 when first began its operations. Today the number has tripled and millions of students are able to access higher education at affordable costs. The University of West Indies has a strong open campus using open distance and technology mediated learning since 1948. In 2013 the open campus served nearly 20,000 students from 17 Caribbean countries, 4,000 of whom were studying online. This is a significant development and the increasing access to internet and mobile telephony provides us with opportunities to meet the educational demands of the region. The growth of technologies has given rise to an increasing trend towards online learning, especially in the developed countries where the distinction between face-to-face and distance learning is disappearing. In 2014, over 33.5% of all US higher education students were taking at least one course online. Latin America has nearly 15% online enrollments with Brazil and Colombia registering the highest growth. So the impact of online and distance learning on higher education has been significant since it has thrown open the ivory towers and led to the massification of higher education. Has this massification resulted in a dilution of quality? In 2012 the Open University of the UK ranked first in student satisfaction. Earlier the Open University of the UK ranked fifth among the 100 universities surveyed by the Quality Assurance Agency in the UK and was found to be one rank higher than Oxford University. There is enough evidence to prove that distance learning can be of equivalent quality to campus-based education. As quoted in a recent economist, William Bowen, a former president of Princeton University, tested online courses in several universities and found that students learned as much as with conventional teaching in three quarters of the time with cost reductions of 19-57%. Now the impact on higher education will be more flexibility for the learner, a reduction in the completion time of various programs and affordable costs. However, in many developing countries online and distance learning are still considered a second chance option. Therefore, higher education institutions will have to put in place rigorous quality assurance mechanisms. Not only will institutions have to pay greater attention to the quality of online and distance learning provision, but they will also have to dispel negative perceptions through evidence-based advocacy. Distance education around the world has already demonstrated that access can be increased and costs can be cut. For example, a study showed that the annual cost per student at the Korean National Open University is US$186 compared with nearly $3,000 for a campus student. Look at the difference. A distance learning program in teacher education costs one-third of what the same student would pay for the University of Nairobi's BEAD program. Georgia Tech in the United States is offering its prestigious Masters in Computer Science course as a MOOC because of which its existing cost of $40,000 is being reduced to $7,000, which is affordable even in many developing countries. As we know, these massive open online courses or MOOCs are a form of distance and online learning. Started at the University of Manitoba here in Canada in 2008, MOOCs gained traction in the Ivy League institutions of the United States and have resulted in major consortia of the top research universities on both sides of the Atlantic, Coursera, edX and Udacity in the US with future learn led by the Open University UK and there are many others around the world and in the Commonwealth. So what's the implication for higher education? That universities will no longer be able to work in isolation but will have to reach out and work collaboratively with other institutions as the MOOC consortia have demonstrated. The impact for learners will be that they will have many more choices for determining which courses to follow and with which institution. The institutions which teach may not necessarily be the institution that end up providing the qualifications. There will be more cross-border mobility of learners for which policy makers will need to adopt transnational or regional qualifications frameworks. The MOOC effect in reaching large numbers has been quite unexpected. For example, the computer science course offered by Udacity was signed up for by 270,000 people. Now this number is many more than the total number of learners who aspire to do the computer science courses in nearly 3,000 degree granting institutions in the USA. Research has shown that many people who sign up for MOOCs already have diplomas or degrees. So MOOCs can offer lifelong learning opportunities at scale to a global constituency. This September the international community will agree on sustainable development goals or SDGs that will shape our collective agenda for development from 2015 to 2030. The proposed goal on education is, and let me quote, is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all, unquote. The higher education community can contribute to the achievement of this goal by using online and distance learning to reach out to marginalized communities with quality learning that leads to livelihoods. In many of the developing Commonwealth countries, we are still confronted with many divides on the basis of gender, on the basis of location and in relation to access to technology. Therefore, any technology that we adopt must keep the special circumstances of our learners in mind. Our young people must be trained in the skills they need for employment and entrepreneurship. A McKinsey report points out that, and I quote, employers, education providers and youth live in parallel universes, unquote. And very often these worlds do not meet. Over 50% of the youth surveyed did not believe that their secondary education would lead to employment. Similarly, about 50% of the employers did not think that the new graduates had the skills to be hired even at the entry level. There seems to be a disconnect between what we teach in our schools and universities and what is required by the job market. Four key strategies have been identified to get Europe's youth into work. One is to invest in innovations so that education becomes more affordable and accessible. This has been the fundamental premise underlying distance and online provision. Two, bring together young people, employers and education providers, something that we as educational providers need to focus on. Three, build enabling structures and four, share the practices that work. Context is always important and the models that we adopt must be fit for purpose. So in conclusion, how can online and distance learning address the challenge of skills development, gainful employment and livelihoods? One, by transforming the curriculum to make it more relevant for the needs of the 21st century. Two, by harnessing appropriate technologies to address the needs of our youth. And the rise of low-cost mobile devices is making this a real option in the developing world. And three, by ensuring that there is a convergence between the needs of the labour market and the education that we provide to our youth. And with that, let me thank you for your kind attention.