Recently, the China Adult Education Association released its recommendations for the “2021 Common People Learning Stars” and “Lifelong Learning Brand Project” commissioned by the General Office of the Department of Vocational and Adult Education, Ministry of Education.

During National Lifelong-learning Activity week, an expert panel examined the candidates recommended by local education administrations and adult-education associations, with 5 people named “Common People Learning Stars”, including a “grandpa student” and an alumnus of Fujian OU (Fujian Open University).

Wu Jianmin has been studying junior-college Law at the Online Education College of Dongbei University of Finance and Economics since March 2019, and Tea Art and Tea Marketing at Fujian OU since September of that year. Wu Jianmin, in his 70s, is a “grandpa student”  who is insatiable for learning, and has received countless compliments from teachers and fellow students; he is a modest student full of positive energy, and a role model for his teachers and fellow students in the way he has maintained his desire for knowledge and novelty.

Zhang Jiaxing graduated from the Zhangzhou branch school of Fujian Radio and TV University (Fujian RTVU) in 1985 with an associate degree in Chinese. Once a research librarian at Minnan Normal University and researcher at Minnan Academy of Culture, she has been teaching part-time at Zhangzhou RTVU (now Zhangzhou Open University) and Zhangzhou Open University for Older Adults since retiring. She is passionate about lifelong independent learning, and has become an expert in the linguistics and folk literature of China through her efforts. The 400 episodes of Minnan Nursery Rhyme she hosted for Zhangzhou Television after retiring were greatly loved, and since 2015 she has been teaching literature of the Minnan Dialect at Zhangzhou RTVU and Zhangzhou University for Older Adults, while compiling textbooks totaling over 300,000 words. Since 2017, Zhang Jiaxing has been chief editor of Zhangzhou Minnan Dialect - Traditional Moral Education, a textbook used by the elementary school attached to Minnan Normal University. She has also made recordings of it, and taught nursery rhymes and moral proverbs in the Zhangzhou dialect to teachers and students at the school. Her work greatly influenced local elementary education and the parents of students at her school. In 2020, Zhang Jiaxing was selected by the Zhangzhou “Intangible Cultural Heritage” programme to impart Minnan proverbs and disseminate literature composed in the dialect.

By Fujian Open University