• Conclusion of consultative process

One of the outcomes of this meeting was the draft consultative document on the TQF. This document is now made available to member states for their comments. All commentaries will be collated and incorporated where justified and a final document will be circulated to all member states.

It is also envisaged that cluster meetings will be held as part of the consultation process. These cluster meetings need to be held in the three regions - Africa, Asia-Pacific and Caribbean and facilitated by TQF MC members from the relevant regions before 31st March 2009. While the TQF MC appreciates the huge costs of these cluster meetings, it submits that without them the TQF will not be sustainable as well as to have "buy in" by member states.

All member states are encouraged to submit preliminary comments (as per template found at page 43 of the document) not later than 10th January 2009 to the TQFMC via the BaseCamp of the Chairperson of the TQFMC at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Commonwealth of Learning (COL) must ensure that the consultative document is submitted to interlocutors and senior officials in all member countries. They too must have access to BaseCamp.

As soon as possible after all cluster meetings have been conducted, a face to face meeting of TQFMC will be convened to amend and finalise the consultative document. The intention is to present a collectively agreed TQF document via COL to the Ministers of Education at their next meeting.

• The design of VUSSC Portal

The TQFMC is aware that COL is in the process of developing the VUSSC/TQF portal. This is a crucial step in the implementation of the TQF. Following our discussions with COL, we recommend that the elements contained in the draft TQF document inform the design of the VUSSC/TQF portal.

• Strategic Plan for TQF

TQFMC has also identified the need to work on a strategic plan. The aim of the plan is to clarify the direction that we ought to take together, to outline the procedures and processes and to spell out marketing and financial aspects. This is expected to be done in early 2009 after the appointment of the VUSSC Education Specialist.