On March 6-11, 2013, OUC President Yang Zhijian led a delegation to participate in the 40th anniversary celebration of the establishment of Spain's Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) and attend this year's first executive committee meeting of the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE).

UNED-ICDE Conference Site

The UNED anniversary celebration was co-hosted by UNED and ICDE in the format of an academic seminar. The seminar was also one of ICDE's regional conferences. The theme of the conference was “Mobilizing Distance Education for Social Justice and Innovation”. The conference also included four sub-themes, which were “Education Policies: Promotion and Social Justice”, “Social Justice and Distance Education”, “Changes in Higher Education & Successful Experiences”, and “The Role of Higher Education Institutions in an Educational Model for Social Justice and Innovation”. The conference attracted over 100 participants from more than 40 different countries.

After the anniversary celebration, the ICDE Executive Committee held its first face-to-face meeting this year to deliberate the 2012 financial report, discuss matters including the development status of its members and ICDE’s 2013-2016 strategic development plan, and hold in-depth talks related to the 25th ICDE World Conference to be hosted by Tianjin Open University in October 2013.

President Yang Zhijian meets with Prof. Tian Belawati, ICDE President (second from left), and Mr. Gard Titlestad, ICDE Secretary General (first from left)

By Yang Yongbo, the OUC