The International Conference on ICT and Post-2015 Education jointly sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Ministry of Education of P.R.C. was held in Qingdao from May 23rd to 25th, 2015. More than 300 representatives from international organizations and famous enterprises from over 90 countries and more than 200 representatives from China attended the conference.
Chinese President Xi Jinping also sent a congratulatory letter. Vice Premier of China Liu Yandong attended the opening ceremony of the conference and read President Xi’s congratulatory letter. Ms. Liu Yandong also delivered an important speech. The conference focused on the theme "Information Technology and Future Education Reform", and aimed to explore effective ways to deeply integrate education with information technology, so as to promote the wide and deep application of information technology in the field of education.
President of the Open University of China (OUC) Yang Zhijian was invited to attend the conference and deliver a theme report entitled Network-Based: An Effective Way at the sub forum “Lifelong Learning Ways". He explained that lifelong learning is the only way for individuals and societies to make continuous improvement and development. Driven by UNESCO, lifelong learning has developed into an education practice movement. However, lifelong learning is not ideally realized around the world. The degree of lifelong learning promotion is different in various countries or regions, and its development is not balanced, leading to an urgent need to seek more effective development pathways. Technological development, especially the development of the Internet, has changed our methods of production, life style, behavior, and thinking. In the Internet age, network-based learning has become the inevitable choice in effectively promoting life-long learning. The Chinese government has attached great importance to the revolutionary influence of information technology on education. Currently, the government has proactively implemented overall policies supporting the planning and deployment of education technology, comprehensively launching construction of the “Three Availabilities and Two Platforms” (network availability among universities, high quality resource sharing availability among classes, and cyber learning sharing availability among students; public service platform for education resources, public service platform for education management), which has led to several breakthroughs.
Yang Zhijian said that the OUC is a new style of university, one with the promotion of lifelong learning as its purpose and modern information technology as its support. To promote the quality of lifelong learning, the OUC is committed to promoting the construction of educational digitization, focusing on the deep integration of technology and education to create a digital learning environment, collect and build digital learning resources, and explore the network-based teaching mode of "Integration of Six Networks" (e-learning core course, e-learning space, e-learning teaching team, e-learning service, e-learning test, and e-learning teaching management).
Yang Zhijian’s speech received positive feedback from the representatives. He also participated in deep discussion and communication on the quality of online education with the participants at the conference.
The representatives discussed several topics, and reached a broad consensus on the role of educational digitization in expanding education opportunities, promoting education fairness, improving the quality of education, etc. At the conference, they issued the Declaration of Qingdao.
"National Application Exhibition of Educational Digitization" was held at the conference. A total of 92 organizations, including organizations from the Ministry of Education, education departments at local levels, and 53 domestic and foreign enterprises took part in the exhibition. The OUC exhibited its progress in promoting digital learning and related work.
Display Board of the Digital Learning of the OUC
By Wu Shuping, Yuan Songhe, and Wang Ying