Gerald Farthing, Deputy Minister for Education and Sustainable Development, Province of Manitoba, Canada visited the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) on 16 November 2015 to discuss his vision of learning for sustainable development. Farthing met with COL President and CEO Professor Asha Kanwar and members of COL’s senior management team, and said he was keen to develop solutions for distributing high-quality learning materials among remote communities in northern Manitoba.

Farthing complimented COL on its work as a leader in learning for sustainable development and made special note of COL’s network of partners that provide expertise from across the Commonwealth. The Government of Manitoba is keen to partner with COL in highlighting critical issues of learning for the future, he said. In particular, Farthing noted that the issue of boys’ academic underachievement and high drop-out rates experienced by some Commonwealth member states in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, is also a concern in his province, but more so in higher/post-secondary education.