On September 22, 2012, the OUC and Yunnan RTVU signed a cooperative framework agreement in Beijing to jointly develop international distance Chinese education and Chinese culture education for Yunnan province as well as neighboring countries. The educational programmes will be based on the “MyEChinese” international distance Chinese education platform developed by the OUC's own Chinese Language Center and will revolve around the Yunnan area. The two parties will work together to construct overseas teaching centres, provide degree and non-degree international distance Chinese education, and promote the localization,

joint construction and sharing of teaching resources.  

OUC President Yang Zhijian and Yunnan RTVU Party Committee Secretary Chen Luyan sign the cooperative framework agreement

Signing Ceremony

The signing ceremony was hosted by Zhang Shaogang, vice secretary of the OUC party committee. Yang Zhijian, president of the OUC, and Chen Luyan, secretary of the party committee of Yunnan RTVU, delivered speeches and signed the cooperative framework agreement. Ruan Zhiyong, secretary of the OUC party committee, and Luo Yi, vice president of Yunnan RTVU, as well as leaders from relevant departments of the two universities attended the signing ceremony.

President Yang Zhijian noted in his speech that Yunnan is one of the provinces of China that border the most foreign countries. General Secretary Hu Jintao, after his tour of Yunnan in July 2009, put forward the farsighted “bridgehead strategy” to position Yunnan as an important window facing China's southwest neighbors. The university's role in supporting the national strategy is to promote cultural exchange with neighboring countries. Yunnan RTVU has natural geographic advantages in conducting international Chinese education, and the OUC has unique technological advantages in conducting distance Chinese language and culture education. The two universities can work together to make a great contribution in this field. For many years, the OUC has actively explored ways to globalize the Chinese language and culture through distance education. It developed the MyEChinese international Chinese education platform and can provide distance teaching, course resources and distance support services to Chinese learners and teaching institutions all over the world. The newly established OUC upholds ”internationalization” as one of its five core values and strives to develop international Chinese education and promote Chinese culture around the world. From this point forward, the OUC will put "internationalization" into practice by working with Yunnan RTVU to establish overseas teaching points in South Asia and Southeast Asia, and develop international Chinese education and other open education programmes. It is hoped that both parties will effectively implement the collaborative projects after signing the agreement, and work together to promote Chinese open education worldwide. 

Chen Luyan explained in his speech that Yunnan RTVU proposed a strategic goal to build “an influential modern open university in Southeast Asia” in order to implement the national strategy. To meet the internal demands of a regional open university, it would host the education sub-forum of the China-South Asia Business Forum and implement the plan to globalize out to the ASEAN countries. Since 1999, Yunnan RTVU has recruited more than 400 overseas students from France, the United States, Thailand, Vietnam and Laos for short term Chinese training. Recently, it has signed MOU's and bilateral cooperative agreements with 11 universities including India's Central University of Jharkhand, Afghanistan's Higher Education Institute of Karwan, and Bangladesh's North South University. The agreements set forth to establish overseas study centers where conditions permit and to develop degree and non-degree distance Chinese education. Yunnan RTVU will fully utilize the MyEChinese platform and use the cooperative framework agreement as a basis for active exploration and joint innovation, exploiting the strengths of open distance education to contribute to the development of international distance Chinese education.

By Mao Dan from the OUC