On 8 November 2019, the National Opening Ceremony for the 2019 National Lifelong Learning Activity Week was held in Zhengzhou, Henan Province. This activity week was themed "promoting national lifelong learning and speeding up the building of a learning power.” At the opening ceremony, the 2019 Community Education and Resource Sharing Activity for Elderly Education (hereinafter referred to as "Sharing Activity") was officially launched.

According to the Notice on Further Conducting Community Education and Resource Sharing Activity for Elderly Education (Letter of MOE Vocational and Adult Education [2019] No. 85), the MOE, together with relevant ministries and commissions, the Open University of China (OUC), the University Continuing Education Digital Resources Opening and Online Education Alliance, Peking University Health Science Centre (PKUHSC), and Beijing Normal University jointly undertook the implementation of the Sharing Activity. The Sharing Activity aims to further develop the mechanism of community education resources co-construction and sharing, improve the relevancy and effectiveness of high-quality digital learning resource services, and establish an open media sharing model based on multi-terminal learning that is suitable for all members of society.

The main content of the Sharing Activity covers four aspects. First, the upgrading and renovation of the online resource hub for community education and senior education. We should promote the sharing of existing learning resources and the sharing of community education teachers and volunteer libraries through the "China Community Education Network" (http://www.shequ.edu.cn/), which the MOE has designated to be built by the OUC. Second, the innovation and implementation of the "Online Community Education Lecture Hall", the unification of selection standards, focus on creating a series of outstanding micro-courses, and increasing the reliance on mobile phones and other mobile terminals to cooperate with public media to push quality resources to the target audience. Third, the ministries and commissions working together to enable well-known experts and scholars, famous doctors, great artisans, and inheritors of intangible cultural heritage to go out into grassroots communities and carry out sharing activities. Fourth, the extensive implementation of "Joint Scanning Code Learning.” By relying on the OUC system to encourage students from community education guidance service centres and educational institutions for the elderly throughout the country to follow the "Online Community Education Lecture Hall" account, curriculum resources can be fully shared and applied. Jing Degang, Party secretary and president of the OUC, gave a speech at the opening ceremony. In his speech he said that the OUC would actively mobilise resources, strongly support the Sharing Activity, and implement it to the best if its abilities. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee clearly stated the need to build an education system that serves lifelong learning for all. The OUC is a university founded with the advocacy and approval of Comrade Deng Xiaoping. Since its founding, it has been committed to lifelong education. The OUC keeps pace with the development of science and technology, actively explores and promotes the integration of the Internet, big data, artificial intelligence, and education, and strives to build a better smart learning system. At present, the OUC has set up 176 majors, 37,000 digital micro-courses, and more than 300 online core courses and has more than 4.04 million students. As Minister of the MOE Chen Baosheng said, “The right kind of education for you will always be available at the OUC." At the new historical starting point, under the leadership of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, the OUC will further innovate the co-construction and sharing mechanism of "Internet+" community education resources, focus on meeting the diverse learning needs of the Chinese people, build a first-class open university with Chinese characteristics, implement the concept of lifelong education, and support the construction of a learning society and a lifelong education system in China.

Jing Degang visiting the Lifelong Learning Achievement Exhibition

As the main organiser of the Sharing Activity, the OUC has built a nationwide Community Education Resource Sharing and Public Service Platform and a Resource Sharing and Public Service Platform for the Education of Older Adults. It cooperated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) to create high-quality curriculum resources for nearly 300 courses, building a curriculum evaluation platform, launching the WeChat learning account "Online Community Education Lecture Hall", and contacting media such as Toutiao and Xuexi Qiangguo to enable community education and education resources for older adults to be pushed to target learners.

The activity week was hosted by the MOE Department of Vocational and Adult Education, the China Adult Education Association (CAEA), and the Secretariat of the National Commission of the P.R.C for UNESCO, and was undertaken by the Henan Bureau of Education, Zhengzhou Municipal Government, and the Zhengzhou Municipal Education Bureau. A total of more than 700 people attended the opening ceremony, including relevant personnel from the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Health Commission, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the General Administration of Sports, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, and the National Federation of Trade Unions, as well as representatives from the education bureaus of other provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities, and Zhengzhou municipal education institutions.

By MOE Research & Training Centre for Community Education