According to the charter of the Academic Committee of the Open University of China (OUC), the first plenary meeting of the Education Sub-Committee of the second OUC Academic Committee was held in Tai’an, Shandong Province from 15-17 May 2019.
Thirteen members of the sub-committee (including one guest member) attended the meeting and five other members attended the meeting online, with personnel from the academic affairs department and science and research department of the Shandong branch sitting in on the meeting. The meeting was co-chaired by Xie Minghao, director of the Education Sub-Committee of second OUC Academic Committee, and Sun Fuwan and Long Xuejin, deputy directors.
The meeting focused on the themes of education modernisation, national vocational education reform, curriculum reform for ideological and political education, and education majors. Prior to the meeting, the Education Sub-Committee organised for the members to study a series of relevant documents online, including China Education Modernisation 2035, General Secretary Xi Jinping’s Important Speech at the Conference on the Ideological and Political Work of National Higher Education Institutions, OUC’s Implementation Opinions on Further Strengthening and Improving New Era Students’ Ideological and Political Education Work, and OUC Key Work Points for 2019.
Xie Minghao delivered a speech and introduced the organisation work for the meeting, as well as the agenda and the attendance rate. Special themed reports were given by other members of the committee including Zhong Zhixian, Sun Fuwan, Wang Zhengdong, and Zhu Zulin. The members learned about the annual work plan for the OUC Faculty of Education and discussed and exchanged views on good practices and the current problems arising in the teaching. In addition, the members worked together to complement and improve the Education Sub-Committee’s work plan for 2019. Based on what has been agreed, Xie Minghao gave detailed work arrangements for the next stage to the sub-committee and assigned responsible personnel and specified division of labour in the form of separate working teams.
The work for the next stage of the Education Sub-Committee focuses on five aspects: Firstly, continue to intensify the projects already launched in 2018, focus on specific issues in discipline and teaching, study the general ability enhancement project for preschool teachers, study the construction of education majors, and study online ideological and political education and relevant curricula; Secondly, strengthen communication and matching with the OUC Faculty of Education and provide expert resource support according to the annual work plan; Thirdly, promote the OUC Research Centre’s special academic research to enhance the academic development of the university and carry out research into the integration of traditional cultural education with new media; Fourthly, carry out field investigations and surveys of education serving rural revitalisation; Fifthly, support and participate in the third open and innovation education forum (Changsha, Hunan) and preschool forum.
New era education guidance policies have been adopted and the expected effects were achieved at the meeting. The attending members all stated that communication and exchanges should be strengthened and that they would positively exert their roles so as to make due contributions to the OUC organisational system.
By Pan Maoming, OUC