Most countries possess limited resources to sustain a large education and training infrastructure.
In the Commonwealth South Pacific, the University of the South Pacific is the key provider of off-campus tertiary education and employs distance education methods to reach learners throughout the region. However, challenges remain in the use of distance and flexible learning to enhance people s capacity to increase economic production in all countries of the region and improve literacy levels in some. A further need to be met is to increase local capability in the application of information and communications technologies in developing and distributing training programmes. Many of the activities related to these may have to be done by encouraging and establishing partnerships among institutions of the region. The centrepiece of COL s activities in the Pacific is a new initiative in using open and distance learning to upgrade the skills required to strengthen local economies, complemented by a pilot project on credit recognition designed to enhance the mobility of workers amongst the island states.