President’s Quarterly Progress Report: January − March 2007

Abstract

The Executive Committee met in London on February 2. We took advantage of being at the Commonwealth Secretariat to strengthen links with our colleagues there and to hold a planning meeting for the Fifth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning (PCF5), which is to be held at the University of London in July 2008. A formal launch event for PCF5 will be held at the University on May 17, 2007. My own travels this quarter began in India, where I visited the state open universities of Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu and took part in a review meeting of COL’s expanding Lifelong Learning for Farmers initiative. Then in late January, Professor Mohan Menon and I paid a productive return visit to the World Bank, which is particularly interested in COL’s work in open schooling. COL is preparing an evaluative review of open schooling to assist the World Bank in determining how to support this response to the rapidly increasing demand for secondary schooling that is emerging as universal primary education is achieved.