On 8 November 2024, Wang Qiming, secretary of the Party Committee and president of the Open University of China (OUC, aka the Seniors University of China, SUC), and his delegation visited Suzhou for research.
Li Song, a member of the Party Committee and vice president of the OUC, participated in the research, accompanied by Ji Jing, vice mayor of Suzhou Municipal People’s Government, and Zhou Zhifang, director of the Suzhou Municipal Education Bureau.
The research team visited the Suzhou University for the Elderly, the Yueling Project Site of "Elderly University at Your Doorstep" in Wumenqiao Sub-district, Yiyang Nursing Home of Suzhou Health & Senior Care Group, and Suzhou Intelligent Manufacturing Integration Development Centre. They conducted research on Suzhou's practices and explorations in areas such as digital empowerment for lifelong learning and elderly education.
Through on-site visits, the research team gained a detailed understanding of Suzhou's specific experiences, mature mechanisms, and work outcomes in areas such as strengthening legislative coordination and building "at-your-doorstep" learning spaces; fully integrating resources from various departments to create ubiquitous learning environments; deepening the transformation of digital learning scenarios, content, and methods, and enhancing digital empowerment; as well as innovating operational models to promote the transformation of lifelong education services towards the "Education+" model.
Wang Qiming affirmed Suzhou's explorations in the field of lifelong education and hoped that Suzhou would continue to take the lead in lifelong education reform. It is hoped that Suzhou will proceed from the overall perspective of advancing the Chinese modernisation, building a learning society and a leading country in education. He emphasised the need to continuously improve the public service level of lifelong learning and leverage digital empowerment to drive the construction of a learning society and country.
Personnel from relevant departments of the OUC (SUC) participated in the research.
By OUC