Let me salute all my colleagues in the Academic and Administrative Departments and the members of the Academic Support Staff whose contributions helped us to steer quite an eventful and extraordinary journey in 2010. The glory that we talk about is the outcome of the untiring efforts of teams of committed and competent individuals.

Our scorecard during the past year has been tremendously encouraging; we had academics winning presidential research awards, students wining national and international trophies and workers helping us to be on our toes with respect to printing of books, learner registrations and successfully completing examinations, holding award ceremonies and convocations to our satisfaction. All these were accomplished despite our heavy schedules pertaining to the 30th Anniversary celebrations, executing the building plans, making the premises clean and green and maintaining peace and harmony within the University.

The year 2011 has dawned with even greater expectations and much greater pressure for achieving spectacular heights. For this we need to re-visit and re-vamp our weaknesses, upgrade plans and strategies, speed-up the implementation process and collectively work to assure continued success.

These are symptoms of a winning instinct and our challenges are not insurmountable especially when we have the blessing, support, determination and commitment of our staff and learners.

Therefore the year we step into would be even more eventful with respect to expectations, goals and challenges. This year we would actively explore our international market. We need to make sure our regional and study centres are properly equipped and that our resources are optimally used. We need to assure that all regional and study centres break-even. We need to evolve mechanisms to recognize achievements and reward exceptional effort. We need to improve our service quality to help success rates of our learners. We need to nurture and build teams of great men and women who are committed to the cause of Open Distance Learning. The day we do all of them would make us real champions. I have tremendous confidence in you and I wish all of you good health, courage and happiness.

Professor Upali Vidanapathirana.