On the afternoon of 8 June 2022, the Open University of China (OUC) and the Higher Education Teaching-evaluation Centre of the Ministry of Education (MOE) held a meeting to train evaluators and launched spring teaching-quality evaluation of selected branches.
42 evaluators were designated from 19 units, including local education authorities, domestic colleges and universities, the OUC headquarters, and local open universities, with both online and onsite evaluation covered. It will be the third evaluation since the OUC set out to strengthen quality governance in 2020.
Attending the meeting were Li Song, vice president of the OUC; Li Ruiqing, director of the OUC Discipline Inspection and Audit Department; and Han Yi, director of the OUC Department of Quality Monitoring and Control. The meeting was presided over by Hu Po, deputy director of the OUC Department of Quality Monitoring and Control.
Li Song pointed that teaching-quality evaluation helps foster new mindsets and modern approaches, putting the focus on teaching and its standardisation, enhancing school operations, and uncovering problems; he expressed the hope that solutions to the latter would be a point of emphasis.
Li Ruiqing, meanwhile, stressed the importance of objectivity and fairness, discipline, and adherence to process among evaluators.
Qi Junguo, an expert recommended by the Higher Education Teaching-evaluation Centre, gave a presentation titled “Nature and Methods of Evaluation” that covered objectives, issues and effects; the nature of evaluation; why and how it is conducted; and the work and methods of preparation, as well as its remote and onsite phases.
Han Yi explained the evaluation criteria in detail based on documents released by the MOE. The meeting also demonstrated how to use the remote evaluation platform and work manuals. Beginning on 9 June 2022, the branches in Tianjin, Liaoning, Heilongjiang, Henan, Chongqing and Xinjiang Bingtuan will receive a comprehensive teaching-quality inspection.
Written by Wang Jia; photos by He Dandan