Globalization, Competitiveness and Open and Distance Education: Reflections on Quality Assurance by Professor Gajaraj Dhanarajan, President, The Commonwealth of Learning, Vancouver, to the Asian Association of Open Universities, Eleventh Annual Conference "Quality Assurance in Distance and Open Learning" Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 11-14 November 1997 // 1. Colleagues, allow me a minute to thank the organisers of this Conference and the Asian Association of Open Universities (AAOU) for this delightful opportunity to share some thoughts with you on a subject that is becoming increasingly important for education, generally, and higher education, particularly. The AAOU which is in its eleventh year of existence, has become an important forum for distance and open education in the region. Increasingly, it is being seen as a remarkable role model for professional distance education associations across the developing world. At the same time, its members are also held in high regard by peers across the world for the single minded way in which they have gone about creating their own forum to discuss issues of importance to their professional development. We, at The Commonwealth of Learning, are immensely proud of our association with you; in one way or another we have found occasions to work with your association on matters of mutual interest to both our organisations. We would like to continue this arrangement and explore opportunities to strengthen our ties even further in the future.