On 29th September 2024, the Founding Conference of the Aesthetic Education Committee of the China Adult Education Association (CAEA) & 1st General Assembly of the Council Member Representative, sponsored by CAEA and organised by the School of Art of the Open University of China (OUC) was held.
Nearly one hundred experts and member representatives from nearly 50 institutions including regular universities, vocational colleges and research institutes participated in the conference. Li Song, a member of the Party Committee and vice president of the OUC, was present at the conference and delivered a speech.
Li Song attended the conference and delivered a speech.
Li Song extended his warm congratulations on the establishment of the CAEA Aesthetic Education Committee. He pointed out that the establishment of the Committee is a concrete measure to fully implement the guiding principles of General Secretary Xi Jinping's instructions on strengthening aesthetic education in schools. Aesthetic education is an important part of the Party's educational policy and an important way to implement the fundamental task of fostering virtue through education. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping has comprehensively discussed the significance, connotation and methodology of aesthetic education in his series of important instructions, replies to letters and speeches, elevating school aesthetic education in the new era to a new height, enriching and developing Marxist educational theory. It is an organic part of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, which points out the direction and provides fundamental guidelines for us to do a good job in school aesthetic education in the new era.
He proposed that after the past 45 years of development, the aesthetic education at the OUC has gone through three stages: the initial stage, the exploration stage, and the development stage. Since the establishment of the School of Arts in 2022, the OUC has opened a new chapter in aesthetic education. The School of Art has extensively carried out aesthetic education work in the fields of degree education, non-degree education and elderly education to meet the diverse and personalised needs for aesthetic education, promote the overall improvement of the aesthetic level and humanistic literacy of the whole society, and promote the popularisation of aesthetic education.
Li Song said that the OUC will work together with all the council members to pool their strengths, conduct in-depth discussions and promote the high-quality development of aesthetic education in the new era. The OUC will organise a series of activities such as conducting research projects, academic exchanges, teacher training, experience sharing, exemplary demonstrations, and observing practice bases s to improve the comprehensive quality of the aesthetic education teacher team, promote the reform of aesthetic education teaching, improve the level of aesthetic education, effectively implement the fundamental task of fostering virtue through education, and contribute to the cultivation of socialist builders and successors with all-around development in terms of morality, intellence, physique, aesthetics and labuor education, as well as the realisation of national rejuvenation.
Niu Tao gave a thematic presentation.
Niu Tao, assistant to the dean of the OUC School of Art, gave a presentation on the theme of “Using Aesthetic Education to Serve the Construction of a Learning Society”. He introduced the development of the OUC’s aesthetic education work from three aspects: background and significance, mission and measures, and exploration and results.
Up to now, the School of Art has run a total of 112 art video courses and 19 online courses, and has successfully held various activities including the OUC Aesthetic Education Teaching Achievements Exhibition, and provided high-quality services for 5 million degree-education students. Meanwhile, the School of Art focuses on social and elderly education, creates 10 courses taught by famous art masters and projects such as the “Online Oil Painting Commune” project, and has successively held four sessions of online oil painting teaching achievement exhibitions, with a total of 20 million learners. For the group of degree-education students, these activities are characterised by generality and immersion; for the social and elderly groups, they are characterised by large-scale, short-cycle, and progressive features.
As the Secretariat of the CAEA Aesthetic Education Committee, the OUC School of Art will do a good job in service work and actively build a platform. Meanwhile, the School of Art will also be committed to exploring new paths for ‘large-scale + personalised’ art education, constructing a new paradigm that integrates open education and lifelong education, creating an aesthetic education teaching system with the characteristics of an open university, and building an aesthetic education brand with wide presence, so as to further enhance the connotative construction and overall vitality of the OUC.
Written by Guo Meng, photos by Niu Tao, OUC