From 13-15 July 2021, the Department of Student Affairs and Teacher Development of the Open University of China (OUC), together with the Faculty of Science and Engineering, sent 30 OUC teachers of computer, mechanical, and electrical engineering to tour Anhui Xinhua Education Group, aiming to implement the requirements of the OUC Comprehensive Reform Plan on the construction of teaching teams, speed up development of teachers with "double qualifications", and promote integration with enterprises, by studying the operations and management of the Group.

Yuan Wei, executive vice dean of OUC Faculty of Science and Engineering; Shu Kaijun, director of the Research Institute of Anhui Xinhua Education Group; and Sun Caiyao, director of the Degree-education Department of Xinhua Education Group, attended the opening ceremony. The Group ensured that the teachers would receive instruction relevant to their needs, and the sites they visited included the Internet-technology Experience Centre, UI Visual-design Experience Hall, Film and Television Animation College, UAV Training Base, Efuture Big-data Training Centre, Chery-WontoneUniversity-enterprise Joint-construction Training Field, and other centres of practical training. The teachers also took part in front-line teaching, observed demonstration lectures produced by the Group, and discussed resource development, teaching within vocational education, online teaching, and other issues with its teachers. Two of the Group’s senior teachers presented teaching plans for practical courses, explaining how to analyse, design, implement and evaluate lectures.

This was the first such tour organised by the OUC, and afterward, the teachers spoke positively of the operations, resource development, and scientific, flexible and diverse forms of training offered by the Group. They were especially impressed by its student-centred educational philosophy integrating theory and practice, the idea of "modular knowledge", and the ways teachers presented their lectures. The teachers gained a deeper understanding of how to design programmes and courses, and provide practical training.

By Yu Jing, OUC