 maottana weda mya semae, turun You hair, aftirurama ta aptкиa pionritunatumile tanaka i aui ātapurau te spiritu, pionritunatamile te 200 metis athara pa maiaia mūtua kakaia, pionritunatatua i aui ātapurau piwa i lukua kai akari hāt , pionritunatatua i uta i mornirai ziwetisiaido. Pionritunatama 4, arolai pionrita tu kamaunga bata, syirpengunitama pwede tura pell metu ka ti le claputitangio. Pionritunatama 6, maiaia pionrita i. of the Virtual University of the Small States, or VASC, at the Commonwealth Minister's meeting in 2000 at Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 2003, a group of ministers led by the President followed up that proposal in Seychelle to create the reality that today is VASC. And in 2015, as Vice President, he requested Commonwealth of Learning to develop learning resources for the Blue Economy. This led Col to develop a MOOC understanding the Blue Economy that was launched in Seychelle in 2017. There's a lot more to come on both of those global initiatives, I'm sure you'll agree. And in particular, I think the issue for small island states of climate change is an idea whose time has well and truly come. In thanking and recognising the President for his innovative advocacy, Commonwealth of Learning also recognises his contribution to us as an organisation, both as a board member and as an honorary fellow. We have been so fortunate to have had his commitment and his advocacy. Today, the President will speak about yet another critical issue for our Commonwealth, empowering youth, our Commonwealth, and I invite you to welcome the President to the stage. Thank you, Linda. Dear colleagues of the Commonwealth of Learning, a very good morning to you all. Very good. As a longtime friend and supporter of the Commonwealth of Learning, I am pleased to be here today. I have seen at first hand the successes of this trailblazing organisation from its early days when I was then a young minister of education to when I had the privilege to serve on the Commonwealth of Learning Board of Governors a few years ago. And it was an honour when the Call Honorary Fellowship was confed on me at the 7th Pan-Commonwealth Forum in Nigeria. Call has grown from strength to strength and is making a difference to the lives of thousands of citizens around the Commonwealth. According to UNICEF data on this day today, some 395,000 children will be born across the world. By the time they become young adolescents in the year 2030, they will expect to see a beautiful and equitable world where they can thrive and realise their full potential. From reducing inequality to improving health and education to spurring economic growth while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests, they will expect us to make significant strides in meeting the global sustainable development agenda. And yet today's reality is starkly different. Our youth are confronted with issues stemming from disparities between the haves and have-nots, conflict and climate change to name but a few. According to the latest World Youth Report around the world, 15% of young people live below poverty line. In my continent, Africa, the situation is very bad. With close to half of the young people in Middle Africa, 42% in Western Africa and third in Eastern Africa, subsisting on less than $1.90 dollars a day. According to the United Nations Secretary General's Special Envoy on Youth, 408 million young people are living in contexts affected by armed conflict. And climate change is no longer a distant threat. It affects the health and livelihoods of millions. For example, every year, 40 million children have their education disrupted by natural disasters or disease. When cyclone Aida hit Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe this March, 600 schools were damaged with an adverse impact on hundreds of thousands of children. As I stand here before you this morning, could you please raise and let us have one minute of silence for our dear brothers and sisters in the Bahamas. God bless and thank you. So the question is, what can we do in the face of these global challenges? How can we ensure that those born today have a better and safer world tomorrow? And how can we empower youth to become agents of change for peace, security, justice, climate resilience and sustainable development for all? The aim of this PCF is innovations for quality education and lifelong learning. And I would like to explore how education can help address these key challenges for our youth. We have a young Commonwealth where 60% of the population is under the age of 30. Quite rightly, then the Commonwealth Charter commits to creating opportunities for youth employment and entrepreneurship. India has a median age of 27 and Africa is the youngest continent with a median age of 19. How can we change this demographic fact into what is called demographic dividend? How can education help? Today, I would like to refer to the three A's which Blanford and other scholars have referred to. Aspiration, access and achievement. Thanks to technology, our youth are more aware than ever before of the opportunities that this brave new world can provide. Today's youth are more aspirational than their forefathers because they know that with the right education and the right opportunities, anything is possible. Both boys and girls are aspirational, but in many communities girls' education is hampered by the lack of aspiration among the family and the community. In Australia, raising educational aspirations of young people is a key component of current educational reforms, supporting the achievement of targets for higher education participation. This is because a lack of aspiration has been identified as one of the barriers to participation in further study for rural and remote students and those from indigenous and lower socio-economic backgrounds. While raising the aspirations of young people is important, it is not enough. We need to raise the aspirations of entire societies and communities so that an enabling ecosystem of aspiration and achievement can be created. Calls, projects and programmes such as lifelong learning for farmers and girls inspire projects show that education should be demand-driven in which families, communities and educational institutions motivate the youth to aspire for quality education and learning. The youth with high levels of aspiration can create a demand for quality education. Studies have shown that the culture of aspiration leads to better learning outcomes. However, it would be dangerous to create aspiration without providing proper access to education. Supporting young people's access to quality education is central to ensuring a full and productive life that contributes to sustainable development. Quality education helps develop the necessary skills for the future of work and instills the foundations of conflict prevention, civic engagement and environmental stewardship. Access is the key word here, I repeat. Access is the key word here. As we know full well that across the Commonwealth and beyond millions of young people are denied this basic human right. According to UNESCO, one in five children, adolescents and youth is currently out of school with the highest rates in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia. To improve access, we need to think outside the box and beyond the brick and mortar approach. We need to think in terms of open distance and technology enable learning which are tried and tested mechanisms for ensuring that learning can take place at any time and in any place and this includes formal, non-formal, informal learning opportunities. Access also means ensuring that young people have access to quality education resources that are truly open and free. Both the Commonwealth of Learning and the Open University are pioneers in the field of open and distance education. They have provided, they have proved that the use of technology cannot only open up access to larger numbers but can also cut costs and enhance quality. Open and distance learning cannot only increase access to formal education but also to lifelong learning and we need to harness the potential of this mode if we mean to achieve the SDG for by the year 2030. In my country, the Seychelles, facilitating cost-effective access to education through open education resources is ingrained in our open and distance learning policy and our ICT in education policy. Our national curriculum framework identifies ICT as one of the nine essential learning areas and acknowledges the importance of ICT as a subject matter as well as a tool for teaching and learning. Seychelles is in the process of further establishing itself in the community of information and communication. As policymakers, we need to foster inclusive educational environments that reach excluded and marginalised groups and respect the diverse needs of young people. Access by itself is not enough. Quality education should empower the learners to not only achieve material progress but also enable them to strengthen their self-respect, self-efficacy, resilience and contribute to the sustainable development of their community and their society. Achievement, thus, is not merely the successful completion of educational courses. Achievement refers to the ability to become lifelong learners. As Martin Luther King said, that intelligence plus character is through achievement. Equally important is the issue of providing quality education to everyone, not just to those in privileged schools and urban centres. For me personally, quality education in the 21st century means first and foremost, education that adequately prepares young people for the challenges of the 21st century and enables them to live a life of dignity. And yet, as stated in the UN youth strategy, traditional education systems and training programmes have done little to resolve the often significant mismatch between the skills, new entrant, possessors and those required by employers in today's rapidly evolving global economy. In the context of my country, Seychelles, we have put in place training and skills development schemes to equip out of school youths with experience and marketable skills to secure better employment. Channeling the talents of young people to productive use helps reduce economic inequality and eliminate poverty. In my country, the Seychelles, the first pillar of the Seychelles Human Resource Development Strategy focuses specifically on youth empowerment towards what is called employability. Ultimately, work is foundational to economic stability and prosperity. We can only speculate what the workplace of tomorrow will look like and what specific skillsets will be in demand with advances in automation and increasingly artificial intelligence. But what we do not know is that curiosity, critical thinking and adaptability will be critical for ensuring access to livelihoods. And we need to make sure that our education systems set our young people up for successes by building these 21st century skills. The success of our youth in the 21st century will also be measured by how well they care for the environment. As a leader of a small island nation that is among the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, I cannot underestimate the importance of education in instilling environmental stewardship. Seychelles has taken up a leadership role in promoting the blue economy as the so-called small states are actually large ocean states. In collaboration with the Blue Economy Institute at the University of Seychelles, CALL has developed an online course on this important subject. And I hope this will be further expanded to providing skills training in different aspects of the blue economy. Today I seize the opportunity to once again congratulate and thank CALL for stepping up and coming forward. Congratulations. Ladies and gentlemen, these are ambitious stacks and no one can do it alone. This is specifically true for the small states like ours and in our commonwealth they are the majority. I have always been a champion of working collaboratively to build the human resource capacity of our youth. We have excellent examples of such collaborations. CALL's Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth is a network of small countries that work collaboratively to expand access to post-second education in their countries and improve its quality. The Virtual University works with national institutions of member countries to build capacity and expertise in online collaboration, e-learning and information communication technologies. These are just a few examples of what can be done. As policy makers, it is our duty to create enabling environments for our young people to become global citizens and global leaders. As the UN youth strategy states, I quote, the way in which shifting demographics in the world are leveraged and how young people navigate their transition into adulthood are critical for the progress of humankind and the health of the planet. With this large and increasing number of young people across the globe, it is abundantly clear that it is only by engaging and working with them, supporting them in standing up for their rights and creating the conditions allowing them to progress and play an active role that the international community will be able to achieve peace, security, justice, climate resilience and sustainable development for all. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to end with a call to action. We need to continue to work together and as we move into the fourth industrial revolution, we need to harness the power of technologies to empower our youth to be leaders of a prosperous and sustainable world. This is critical for the progress of humankind and the health of our planet. Thank you for listening.