The Open University of China (OUC), on 22 December 2021, held a meeting on spring 2022 enrolment. The meeting was conducted by video link from the Wukesong campus of the OUC.
Li Song, OUC vice president; Gu Xiaohua, deputy director of the Academic Affairs Department; Tang Yingshan, dean of the Faculty of Humanities; Zhang Xia, vice dean of the Faculty of Education; personnel in charge of majors, and related personnel from the Admissions Office of the OUC headquarters, attended at the main venue, with 6,015 leaders and staff in charge of enrolment at OUC branches (schools) and study centres participated by video link from their branches. The meeting was presided over by Chen Kun, deputy director of the Academic Affairs Department.
Speaking on "High-quality Development of Open Education in the New Era", Li Song gave an overview of the situation of enrolment, including policy and work requirements. He pointed out that, although enrolment was successful in 2021, many challenges remain in terms of external environment and internal governance. In terms of policy requirements, he interpreted the latest policy initiatives of the Ministry of Education on higher-degree continuing education in four aspects, taking into account the reality of OUC operations, and pointed out the possible impacts of policy changes on these. Next, he analysed the opportunities and risks that the "double reduction" policy may create for OUC enrolment, and gave a preliminary interpretation of the MOE "Plan on Degree Improvement of Rural Teachers". For the spring 2022 enrolment, he stated five requirements: a stable scale, enhanced quality, standardised operations, adjusted structure, and risk prevention. In terms of study centres, he proposed to improve these by making entry, study, and assessment stricter. He also noted that enrolment publicity must follow strict standards, with all units not meeting these sanctioned.
Gu Xiaohua said that enrolment at the OUC should fall in line with the transformation it is now undertaking. The problems he highlighted with the current enrolment process include a weakening of the functioning of the OUC system, operations being unable to match the scale of enrolment, and the use of intermediary services; his proposal was to regulate recruitment, and for spring 2022 he put forward requirements related to standardisation, strictness, efficiency, and attention to detail. He encouraged the branches to be practical and innovative, and to form good work habits.
Based on enrolment data for the autumn 2021 semester, and the requirements of the OUC for "improving quality and stablising scale", Chen Kun made arrangements for the spring 2022 enrolment, expecting to increase the proportion of undergraduate students, promoting online registration, and strictly implementing the requirements for the admissions examination. He encouraged optimising enrolment management by strengthening management of the release of enrolment advertising, filing of recruitment prospectuses at each level, surveys of study centres, revision and issuing of regulations, enhanced enrolment publicity via diverse media and enhanced freshman photos, and enrolment evaluation.
By Liu Bojia, OUC