Editor’s notes: The Open University of China (OUC), together with such units as the Office of the China National Working Commission on Ageing (CNWCA), launched the Open University for Older Adults (OUOA) on 28 January 2015.
Over the past six years, the OUOA has remained true to its founding mission and continued to press ahead. Outstanding breakthroughs have been made while continuously expanding the coverage of elderly education, building an educational platform of lifelong learning for older adult learners, enriching the spiritual and cultural life of older adults, and improving their quality of life.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Open University for Older Adults (hereinafter referred to as the OUOA) held the “Happy Learning Live Streaming” class. During the class, older adults throughout the country shared their online learning experiences. Over the course of just three months, tens of thousands of learners around the country participated in the “Happy Learning Live Streaming” classes.
Over the past year, the pandemic has meant that many offline learning venues have had to hit the “pause” button. There was an immediate need for various kinds of educational institutions for older adults to meet their students’ needs for epidemic prevention and protection and learning at home. The learning behaviours of older adults, in particular, online behaviours, were also given unprecedented attention and encouragement.
In the past, guiding older adults to learn with the help of modern technology was a paradox of “expectation” and “suspicion” built on conventional ways of learning. On the one hand, national policies have placed great expectations on “solving problems such as ‘difficulty in securing a seat’ in education for older adults with information technology.” On the other hand, there were always been social voices of suspicion, for example, “Are older people able to access the internet, use computers, or manage mobile phones?” and “Older people are not able to learn online.”
Ever since its establishment, the OUOA has focused on the necessity of combining education for older adults with the concept of “Internet Plus.” It has been active in exploring innovative service models for education for older adults that are flexible in form with online and offline integration in order to expand educational paths for older adults.
Six years have now passed and the OUOA has been active in promoting the operation of education for older adults in the open university system. Today, the number of users registered on its online platforms has reached about 6.3 million and more than 200 million visits have been made to its various learning platforms. The OUOA and the open university system have also done a commendable job of launching the “Happy Learning and Epidemic Prevention” and "Happy Learning and Respecting the Elderly" joint actions in 2020. These actions demonstrated the OUC’s tremendous foundation in the field of online education and the necessity of online education in making education for older adults inclusive. They also represent the first explorations of shaping a new integrated online and offline model of education for older adults. Precious experience has been accumulated for developing education for older adults in a larger scale.
In the clouds: An online campus within your grasp
When the OUC was first established, the orientation of education for older adults was moving from recreational welfare for retired officials to all older adults. A new type of university for older adults, represented by the OUOA and mainly supported by distance education, was becoming increasingly prominent.
During its operation, the OUOA started the development of both an operational network and a learning network to expand the coverage and supply of education for older adults by relying on the open university system and multi-terminal learning platforms, with the goal of achieving the established policy objective of “having more than 20% of the total population of older adults participating in frequent educational activities.”
The OUOA has undertaken the construction of a nationwide resource sharing and public service platform for education for older adults entrusted by the Ministry of Education. It has constructed and operated the learning network of universities for older adults, the happy learning class APP, WeChat mini-programs, a new media matrix, and other multi-terminal learning platforms. It has gathered e-learning resources totalling 3.8 million minutes across categories, recorded a series of courses on the education of older adults in China, and provided easy and fast learning support and service to older adults. To date, the number of registered students has reached 102,000, with the number of visits surpassing 13.5 million. It has offered the older adults around the country a “happy learning” platform that is within their grasp, representing activity, social contact, and demonstration.
The above explorations and accumulated experience has enabled the OUOA to take the following measures.
During the prevention and control of the COVID-19 epidemic in February 2020, it quickly answered the call of the Ministry of Education to “Suspend Classes but Not Learning” and launched the “Happy Learning and Epidemic Prevention” joint action together with the open university system. Thirty-one learning platforms were opened to older adult learners around China free of charge. It gathered together a total of 41,000 courses and produced 25 “Happy Learning Live Streaming” classes, offering 9 million services to learners all over China.
In July, it undertook the construction of the Resource Sharing Platform for Universities for Older Adults Affiliated to China’s State Organs in cooperation with the Financial Management Department of the National Government Offices Administration and organised online teaching for universities for older adults affiliated to China’s State Organs in the 2020 autumn semester. It provided varied, systematic teaching and learning support through live streaming and recorded videos. A total 4,670 live streaming lectures served about 1.26 million retired senior officials from the departments and commission of China’s state organs.
In October, in response to the call of the national “Month of Respecting the Elderly,” the OUOA joined hands with the open university system, launched the “Happy Learning and Respecting the Elderly” action, and produced the of “Intelligent Assistance for the Elderly” cloud class. They stepped up to expand the horizons of learning for older adults, bridge the “digital gap” facing old people, and provide open, easy, flexible, and varied educational services for older adults.
The OUOA’s poverty alleviation efforts through education, such as “Happy Learning and Epidemic Prevention” and “Happy Learning and Respecting the Elderly,” attracted around 20 media reports from outlets such as Guangming Daily, China Education Daily, China Education Television, People’s Daily Online, and China.com.cn. Articles were posted on the official WeChat accounts of the bureaus of retired officials of 24 ministries and commissions, including the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Commerce, the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, and the National Radio and Television Administration. This new type of learning model that enables older adults to learn happily at home using modern information technology has been well received.