The Government Work Report underlines a number of key points, including the development of fair and high-quality education; the integrated development of urban and rural compulsory education, and the promotion of preferential support for education in poverty-stricken areas; the development of ethnic minority education, special needs education, continuing education, and online education; the strengthening of the teaching team and the development of teacher ethics ; and the development of equal access to education to help each individual to change their fate and realise their dreams.
On the morning of 20th March, all staff members of the Open University of China (OUC) watched the closing ceremony of the National People’s Congress (NPC). The OUC will make fostering virtue through education its fundamental task, the improvement of quality as its core, and the problems and objectives as its compass in order to continue to improve its educational capacity, strength, and competence. It aims to make new contributions to the development of the open educational cause and to develop education that people are satisfied with in light of the overall requirements of the Ministry of Education. We hereby present the following edited speeches made by some of the staff members.
Zhang Zhijun from the Poverty Alleviation Office
In this year’s government work report, “poverty alleviation” was mentioned 11 times and “poverty reduction” eight times. This shows the determination of the nation to fight poverty. Access to education helps to pull people outs of poverty. The OUC will resolutely implement the decisions and deployment of the Party Central Committee, the State Council, and the Leading Party Group of the Ministry of Education on the implementation of targeted poverty alleviation to advance Long March Belt poverty alleviation through educational assistance, and targeted poverty alleviation through educational assistance in the Three Regions and Three Prefectures (Three regions refers to Tibetan Autonomous Region, Tibetan-inhabited areas in the provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, and Yunnan Provinces, and Kashi Prefecture, Hetian Prefecture, Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture, and Aksu Prefecture of South Xinjiang; three prefectures refers to Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province, Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province and Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu Province) in an effort to make greater progress.
In April 2017, the “Long March Belt” targeted poverty alleviation through education project was launched. It is a customised targeted poverty reduction project designed to bring together the OUC’s advantages in distance education, operation system, information technology, and learning resources in light of the characteristics of the actual needs of the old revolutionary base areas. It embodies the OUC’s educational philosophy, distinctive advantages, and sympathy for the old revolutionary base areas. The goal is to complete directed assistance to about 30 key poverty-stricken counties for national poverty alleviation in 12 provinces and autonomous along the route of the Long March by 2020. In terms of degree education, free training is given to grassroots cadres and impoverished people filing for poverty alleviation. A scholarship and tuition assistance system has also been set up. In terms of non-degree education, vocational skill training will be provided, focusing on the key industries in poverty-stricken counties. The construction of OUC study centres in poverty-stricken counties will be strengthened in order to assist the construction of cloud classrooms and computer rooms, improve the soft and hard environment of information technology, and improve their capacity to serve local economic and social development and the fight against poverty.
We will step up our efforts to set a good example and effectively complete our tasks by making use of the educational system in accordance with the requirements of the Ministry of Education, the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, and other relevant departments. The tasks given to the OUC by the related government authorities represents their recognition of the OUC’s capacity for informatisation construction and teaching. I am proud to be involved in this work. Entering the new era, we must make new accomplishments, and I’d like to work hard to make greater contributions!
Sun Yu from the Department of Information Technology
Education represents the future of the nation and the hope of the people. The government work report indicates that the key to the country’s prosperity lies with the Party and that the key to the nation’s overall rejuvenation lies with education. With regard to education, quality and fairness are two of the world’s major problems. Solving this problem not only requires high-quality professionals; it also requires that the entire nation’s education quality is improved. The OUC has been exploring the integration of education and technology, and intensifying the construction of quality education resources and the use of investment. Taking the needs of learners as the starting point, we are building different kinds of learning platforms, using information technology approaches to promote education fairness, and helping people in remote mountainous areas enjoy high quality teaching resources.
The inclusion of educational equality, continuing education, and online education in the national strategy is encouraging and inspiring for me, an advocate of information technology in the education industry. As a Party member, I continue to improve my information technology capacity and service level by adhering to learner-centric information construction and services. A unified, easy-to-use information platform for learners, including webpage, WeChat, and app, will help learners get access to learning resources by making full use of information technology approaches, and to push resources to the learners through cloud classrooms set up with full use of cloud computing technology. At the same time, big data analysis approaches will be used to obtain a timely understanding of the latest development trends and to provide learners with with individualised, all-round informatisation learning support. We want learners to experience the changes to the education model brought about by the OUC and the university in the cloud, and really experience the new normal of online education in the new era.
Cheng Gang from the Learner Support and Teacher Development Centre
The government work report indicates that “We will improve the competence of our educators and strengthen teacher ethics. We need to work hard to provide education that our people are satisfied with.” This is encouraging to myself and my colleagues in education.
In January 2018, the Party Central Committee and the State Council promulgated Opinions on Comprehensively Deepening the Reform of Improving the Competence of Teaching Teams in the New Era. This document clearly states that teachers are the first resource for education development and that they are the cornerstone of the prosperity of the country, the prosperity of the nation, and the happiness of the people.
The OUC is a new type of university. For the OUC, issues such as how to optimise the structure of educators and strengthen their capacity are key to improving the overall quality of educators. In line with the spirit of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, and in combination with the actual situation of the OUC, I believe we should act on the following things. The first is to increase public awareness of strengthening teacher ethics. The second is to study, formulate, and issue teacher competence standards and teacher allocation standards, and optimise the structure and regional allocation of teacher resources to standardise and specialise the competencies of OUC educators. The third is to promote teaching team construction in order to increase investment in the building of teaching staff, explore and innovate the employment and encouragement system for new teachers, guide and encourage full-time teachers to be devoted to research, teaching and educating people, and attract high level part-time teachers to the OUC teaching staff. The fourth is to offer teacher training and learning opportunities through multiple channels. The fifth is to carry out special activities, such as the selection of famous teachers, the selection of young leading teachers, and the selection of excellent examples of training plans and the strengthening of teacher ethics in the educational organization system.
During an on-the-spot investigation of Beijing Normal University, Xi Jinping indicated that “the improvement of the competencies of educators should be the foundation…to support outstanding talents for long-term and even lifelong devotion to teaching, and to make teaching one of the most respected careers in our society.” We hope that teachers in the OUC educational system will be able to walk along the path to building a lifelong learning society for all, cultivate more outstanding talents, and make more professional achievements.
Li Wei from the Education Research Institute
Continuing education has been made one of the priorities of educational development and has been made an important part of developing fair and high quality education as stated in the Report of the 19th CPC National Congress and the Report on the Work of the Government in 2018. The development of continuing education is of profound and immediate significance for China in building a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, and harmonious. It is also of great practical value in promoting lifelong learning for all, promoting the well-rounded development of the Chinese people, and giving the people of China a strong sense of fulfillment, happiness, and security.
It is a daunting task to provide satisfactory continuing education and our consideration needs to be focused on two aspects. The first is formulating policies and regulations, promoting legislation for continuing education, and ensuring that the people enjoy fair access to continuing education. Consideration should be given to development needs that may arise in the future, such as the development of human resources and the labour market, and economic and social construction. Regulation systems for continuing education should be improved, in particular, the incentive system to encourage people to carry on continuing education, for example, people doing continuing education could receive an income tax reduction. The second is to work on institutional construction for continuing education. Both public and private institutions should be encouraged to participate in continuing education, and to guide and standardize the development of various kinds of institutions. In particular, we should focus on bringing into play the advantages of featured institutions like the OUC. The open university system has a history of 40 years and covers the entire country. Noted for its integration of information technology and education and teaching, it mainly offers education to disadvantaged adults.
Whether you look at its mission, object, approach or mission, the open university system is a major force behind achieving equal, high-quality education in China. In this regard, the government should attach greater importance to strengthening the capacity of the open university system and leverage the OUC’s demonstrative role, especially its role in promoting quality online education for talent training. It represents the desire to create equal education opportunities for specific groups and the government should give more financial and policy support to promote the construction of a learning society and the exploration of a credit bank system.
Comprehensive Report of the OUC News Network