 The Commonwealth of Learning. Most people call it COAL. What is it? COAL serves the Commonwealth, which is a free association of 53 sovereign countries, all democracies, whose past involved links with Britain. English is widely understood in Commonwealth countries, which have many similarities in their parliamentary, legislative and administrative systems. And this makes for easy and productive collaboration. But with these similarities comes great diversity, nicely expressed by this tie of the Royal Commonwealth Society. The Commonwealth includes some of the world's largest countries, like India, with over a billion people, and some of the world's smallest, like Nauru in the South Pacific, with less than 10,000. Indeed, two thirds of the Commonwealth countries are small states, and COAL works with all of them. All races and religions are well represented. Some Commonwealth members, like Australia, Canada and Singapore, are rich, but most are developing countries. And COAL's job is to help the 45 developing countries to develop further. And that's the second part of our name. We are the Commonwealth of Learning. We believe that our future, both as individuals and as humanity in general, depends on learning. Our motto is learning for development, because we believe that learning is the key to development in all areas. I'm not just talking about schools vital though they are. Keeping families healthy is above all a matter of learning good habits and avoiding disease. Growing enough food depends on learning how to farm better, and improving incomes means learning new skills. The same is true for the two big global challenges, population growth and climate change. The best way of slowing population growth is to give all girls a secondary education, because they will then have fewer children. But at the moment, tens of millions of girls do not get a secondary education. There is a huge challenge of learning for development right there. Sowing population growth will also contribute to slowing climate change. But we must also learn new habits and new lifestyles that make fewer demands on this planet we call home. The Commonwealth of Learning helps the countries of the Commonwealth to learn their way to faster and more sustainable development. We also use the words common wealth and learning in another way. Learning is our common wealth. Learning and knowledge is the common heritage of humankind, and so we must share them. Everything that coal produces in the way of guides and learning materials is made freely available to everyone, not just Commonwealth people. Take a look at our website. We are leaders in the movement to create and share open educational resources. An example is the Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth, which is a collaborative network through which 32 small states develop and share e-learning materials. And that expresses another of coal's principles, South-South Cooperation. Africa and Asia have much useful knowledge to share, and coal facilitates exchanges between their countries. It's a large agenda, and we are a tiny organisation. Our headquarters is by the Pacific in Vancouver, Canada, and we have a unit halfway across the world in New Delhi, India, called the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia. But thanks to my highly expert and dedicated colleagues, and to a huge network of partners in all member countries, we punch far above our weight. In other videos on this site, our Vice President, Professor Asha Kanwar, tells you more about our programme, and my colleagues, our education specialists, describe their own initiatives in learning for development. It's exciting, interesting, and sometimes groundbreaking work, and I'm sure you will find it both engaging and fascinating.