On the morning of November 10th 2009, the "Modern Distance Education and Life-long Learning Forum" and the "Exhibition of Ten Years' Achievements on Modern Distance Education" co-sponsored by the China Distance Education Society and the Open University of China was held in Beijing International Convention Center. More than 400 representatives and students from 69 universities involved in the distance education experiment, the Open University of China, the departments

and organizations concerned, enterprises and industries, and grass-root units attended the opening ceremony. Assistant Minister of Education, member of the CPC Leading Group, Lin Huiqing presented the ceremony and delivered a speech.

The theme of the forum was "Promoting Modern Distance Education, and Facilitating Life-long Learning for All". The representatives conducted a deep communication regarding to the teaching mode of modern distance education and quality assurance, the construction and share of resources, the support and services for the teaching activities, and the application and development of the technology. They drew a comprehensive summary on the accomplishments and experience the modern distance education of higher learning has achieved during the past decade in building the enterprises, cities, communities, rural areas, and army forces based on learning and stressed its new position, mindset and measures for serving the development of a life-long learning society.

The opening ceremony officially started at 9:20 am. Party Secretary of the OUC, Vice President Ruan Zhiyong, Deputy Secretary Zhang Hui, and the former Vice President Sun Lvyi presented the ceremony and cut the ribbon together.

After the ceremony, Assistant Minister of Education, member of CPC Leading Group, Lin Huiqing, accompanied by Secretary Ruan and the former Vice President Sun of the OUC, visited the exhibition area of the OUC.

In the "Exhibition of Ten Years' Achievements on Modern Distance Education", Director of the Higher Education Department of the Ministry of Education, Zhang Daliang visited the exhibition area of the OUC in the company of Secretary Ruan Zhiyong and the Vice President Zhang Shaogang.

The opening ceremony of the Modern Distance Education and Life-long Learning Forum was held in the No. 3 meeting room of the Beijing International Convention Center at 10:30 am.

The former Standing Committee Member of the Political Bureau of the CCPCC, the former Vice Premier of State Council, Li Lanqing and Chen Zhili, the Vice Chairman of the National People's Congress, wrote messages for the conference respectively and Zhang Daliang, Director of the Higher Education Department of the Ministry of Education, announced them to the audience.

Lin Huiqing, on behalf of the Ministry of Education, extended her congratulations and made an important speech on the opening of the forum and exhibition.

Lin affirmed the achievements and experience made in the implementation and development of the modern distance education for serving the enterprises and industries, urban and rural areas, grass-root units, the border regions, regions inhabited by minority ethnic groups, the army forces and the disadvantageous groups in the society. She pointed out that developing distance education and continuous learning and constructing a knowledge-based society characterized by life-long learning for all was brought forth in the 17th National People's Congress, which set a new strategic task for distance and continuous education; The institutions of higher learning had to play their roles in conducting distance and continuous education; They should made in-depth study on the development strategy, find new ideas, explore new modes, and identify their proper positions so as to make more contributions to life-long learning and non-degree education as well as to break new grounds in bringing distance and continuous education to a higher level; They should deepen their teaching reforms and strive to improve their teaching quality in distance and continuous education; They should strengthen their standardized management and quality supervision in order to facilitate a balanced, healthy and sustainable development of distance and continuous education in China.

Secretary Ruan Zhiyong, on behalf of the OUC, briefed the attendees the work and good practice made by the OUC in the past ten years and painted a picture for its future development.

Palidan•Aibaidoula, a teacher of the Kezhou Radio and TV University, Xinjiang province who graduated from the Open University of China with the major in Chinese Linguistic Literature, spoke on the ceremony as a representative of the students receiving modern distance education.

This exhibition mainly demonstrated the outstanding results achieved by the universities of modern distance education in serving the enterprises and industries, rural areas, grass-root units, frontier areas, regions inhabited by minority ethnic groups, army forces, and the disadvantageous groups in the society, the reform and innovation on the teaching mode and the successful experience on the construction and share of resources. The exhibition consisted of two parts: the comprehensive exhibition area and exhibition area for individual universities and colleges.

The exhibition area of the OUC covered a floor space of more than 200 m2, including the picture exhibition, real object exhibition, video exhibition and online interaction area. All of these were the showcase of the OUs' long standing operational principle of serving the society starting with the basic levels, and the Four Orientations (oriented towards rural needs, local needs, occupational needs and ethnic groups' needs) They gave proofs for the important roles the OUs have played in serving the grassroots and the public, narrowing the educational gap between different regions and providing equal chances of education for all the social members and the great contributions the OUs have made in accelerating the popularization of higher education around the nation.

By Yu Zhangli, the OUC