The story
COL was founded at the 1987 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) and inaugurated in 1988. Its title is a phrase used by philosopher John Locke to describe the body of knowledge developed over time by scientists and other thinkers, for the benefit of all people. At the time of its founding, COL focused on promoting economic development by providing education and teaching skills.
In 2024, Professor Peter Scott was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of COL.
In 2015, COL created a six-year strategic plan to align itself with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically SDG4, which work to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning for all by 2030. The Strategic Plan for 2021-2027 was developed against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this Plan, COL has reinvigorated its mandate to provide access to learning opportunities to those in need, making use of distance education and technologies. The 2021-2027 Strategic Plan also re-animates COL's various roles as enabler, capacity builder and catalyst for educational development.
COL hosts a triennial Pan-Commonwealth Forum (PCF) on Open Learning where its Excellence in Distance Education Awards (EDEA) are presented. The Tenth Pan-Commonwealth Forum (PCF10), co-hosted with Athabasca University – Canada's Online University, was held 14–16 September 2022 at the TELUS Convention Centre in Calgary, Canada. This first-ever hybrid Forum brought together nearly 500 policymakers, practitioners and thought leaders from 53 countries (42 Commonwealth countries) and boasted a gathering of more Ministers from more Commonwealth nations than ever before. The resulting Calgary Communique proposed to significantly accelerate progress towards the aim and targets of the SDGs in general and SDG4 in particular to innovate for more resilient education systems and address climate change challenges by prioritising collective actions. PCF11 is scheduled for fall 2025 in Gaborone, Botswana, in partnership with Botswana Open University.
From Wikipedia’s article on Commonwealth of Learning, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4