The 2014 enrollment meeting of The Open University of China (OUC) was convened in Harbin on June 6. The meeting summarized the OUC's enrollment for the spring of 2014, outlined enrollment goals for the autumn of 2014, and summarized the preparation of “The assistance plan of training and development for new-type industrial workers” (“assistance plan” for short).
More than 140 representatives including Yang Zhijian, President of the OUC, Yan Bing, Vice President of the OUC, school leaders in charge of enrollment at 44 branches (open universities), directors of enrollment management departments, relative responsible persons and staff from cooperative education units, responsible persons from the OUC Bayi College, Tibet School, School of the Disabled, and Study Centre directly under the OUC, attended the meeting. Fang Wenbing, the Deputy Director-general of the Education Department of Heilongjiang Province, along with Sun Xianmin, President of Heilongjiang RTVU, attended and addressed the meeting.
Tackling the Challenges: The Value of Guaranteed Quality - Good Performance Guarantees Positions
President Yang Zhijian delivered a speech at the meeting. He emphasized the importance of recruiting students and analyzed the severe challenges faced at present. He said that currently student recruitment and enrollment was of the utmost importance for the open universities. Facing severe challenges from ordinary universities, MOOCs, online colleges, distance education institutions, online operators of ICT company, and other open universities themselves, the school system of the OUC should pay much more attention to the quality guarantee: “Good Performance Guarantees Positions”.
Yang Zhijian elaborated on his views about the promotion of the OUC’s popularity, influence, and attraction. He explained that the OUC was a system, a community that covers the entire country and spans both industries and regions. There should be a united focus on building brand recognition, working together to create brand loyalty. He proposed that the OUC’s brand image should be promoted in three such aspects: firstly, to “shape the external image and build up the internal system” in student recruitment; secondly, to promote the OUC’s steady and comprehensive network construction; thirdly, to improve the quality of education through further innovation.
Deployment of Work: Offering 124 Majors - Continue to Rely on Proven Methods
Kuang Guiqiu, the Director of the OUC Academic Affairs Department and the Admissions Office, summarized the enrollment work for the spring of 2014. In the spring, according to the principles of organic linking, preventing and controlling risks, coordinating operation, and change amidst stability, every provincial RTVU (branch) and branch school (teaching school) positively adapted to the requirements of social education, actively served the students’ learning needs, positively regulated related enrollment work, showed innovation in enrollment services, put forward many new ideas and adopted many new measures. The overall enrollment scale of open education was stable on the whole, and the total enrollment number was 462,800, among which the enrollment of undergraduates was 137,700, and enrollment of college students was 325,100 (including the “One College Student Per Village Initiative”).
Kuang Guiqiu explained specifics about the autumn 2014 enrollment. The OUC’s autumn 2014 enrollment will be implemented according to the current approach. Provincial RTVUs (branches) should continue to strictly ensure that their ability to run the school matches their education scale and level. They should continue to strengthen construction and management for teaching schools (study centres) and intensify and perfect professional teaching conditions so as to enhance their abilities and standards in teaching, management and learning support services.
Assistance Plan: 32 Majors Planning to Enroll Students for the First Time in the Autumn of 2014
The OUC will launch a “Assistance Plan” in the autumn of 2014, which will support 32 majors covering 8 categories such as manufacturing, electronic information, commercial freight, and so on.
As an important feature of the development strategy of the OUC, the “Assistance Plan” began to come together in the latter part of 2013. Relying on the school system of the OUC, including its headquarters, branches, local institutes, learning centres, and industrial and companies’ institutes, and wide cooperation with relative ministries, industry associations, companies, and the labor union system, the plan fully and effectively utilizes modern information technology to integrate the entire society’s excellent educational teaching resources, carrying out degree and non-degree continuing education oriented to providing services and education for front-line workers, promoting the transformation and upgrading of enterprise, stimulating workers’ growth and development, exploring new methods of professional cultivation and the training of new-type industrial workers, reflecting the lifelong learning philosophy, promoting an educational structure designed to provide lifelong educational training services for enterprise workers by open universities, and exploring the creation of a "bridge" to lifelong learning by means of the credit bank.
Guo Hong, Dean of the School of Engineering and Director of the Assistance Plan Office (preparation), explained the pilot programme of the “Asssistance Plan”. Kuang Guiqiu, Director of Academic Affairs Department, Wang Qifu, Dean of the School of Continuing Education, Yan Xiaoping, the Standing Deputy Director of the Credit Bank Management Office, and Jiang Guozhen, the Director of the Information Technology Department, each briefed the conference on the ideas and preparation work related to teaching management, certification education, accumulation and accreditation of learning results, and technology support of the “Assistance Plan”. Zhao Futang, the Deputy Dean of the Automotive School of the OUC outlined contributions made by the Automotive School to the “Assistance Plan”, and Zhao Jinghua, Vice President of Tianjin RTVU and Dean of the OUC Experimental School at Binghai New District, talked about contributions made by the Experimental School which were implemented in the “Assistance Plan”.
Work Focus: "Change" Amidst Stability - Planning "Change" Step-by-Step
Yan Bing summarized the conference. He expressed that, in recent years the guiding thought of recruitment was the following: organic linking, preventing and controlling risks, coordinating operation, and change amidst stability. If “stability” was emphasized in the past, then from now on, the force of “change” should be intensified. “Stability” was the foundation on which “change” could advance, but if “change” didn’t happen, “stability” couldn’t be maintained. “Change” should be balanced in four ways—the balance between stability and reform, the balance between opportunity and challenge, the balance between the whole situation and the part, and the balance between goal and procedure. Yan Bing said that, “change” in student enrollment should be considered from the following four aspects: first, as position requirements "change", so should the training objectives, with enrollment suited to these changing objectives; second, “change” required by new methods in school management and training necessitate new requirements for enrollment; third, “change” is required by new mechanisms, with operating mechanism, working mechanism, and cooperative mechanism requiring changes; finally, “change” is required by new responsibilities, recruitment must face the problem of the transformation and upgrading of radio and TV universities. Yan Bing proposed that “change” should be evident in such aspects as the top layer design and institutional construction, coordinated reform and capacity building, monographic study and special exploration, and system transformation and process re-engineering.
Yan Bing emphasized that “change” should be a progressive procedure. The definition of “progressive” lies in three points: firstly, to obey regulations; secondly, to grasp its rhythm; and thirdly, to prevent and control risks. “Change Amidst Stability” well embodies these principles.
The meeting commended the excellent collectives and outstanding individuals involved in the OUC's enrollment programmes, and presented prizes to the winning representatives. Heilongjiang RTVU, Guangzhou RTVU, Chongqin RTVU, and Guizhou RTVU exchanged ideas around the subjects of “Exploring the Road to Reconstruct School Management Systems Based on the New Systematic Perspective, Promoting Steady Enrollment”, “The Source Brings Flowing Water, Improving Quality and Service”, “Reinforcing Research on Enrollment, Positive Transformation”, and “Grasping Enrollment Quality, Promoting Continued Enrollment Objectives”.
By He Jing, the OUC