It is an honour and a pleasure for me to take a few minutes to present the proposal that is before you for a Commonwealth Tertiary Education Facility. At the request of the Commonwealth Secretariat the background paper was initiated by my colleague Professor Asha Kanwar, now COL's Vice-President and Programme Director, but formerly our Higher Education Specialist. It has been extended and refined by our colleagues at ComSec and the ACU, so this is already a team effort. // You have all read the paper, so I shall simply draw attention to some of the key issues for our discussion by asking and commenting on five questions. // What is the scope of tertiary education? Do Commonwealth countries seek help with developing tertiary education? If so, what kind of help do they need and what is the volume of the demand? Which agencies and organisations are already responding to this demand? How might the Commonwealth's collective response be made more effective? How much money is needed and where will it come from? // Let me take these in order.