The “Training Action for Thousands of Employees in Guangdong” activity, sponsored by Guangdong Provincial Federation of Trade Unions and organized by the Open University of China (OUC), Southern Daily, and Guangzhou Distance Education Centre, was launched at the OUC (Guangzhou Branch) on December 30.

Mr. Huang Yebin, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of Guangdong Provincial People’s Congress and Chairman of Guangdong Provincial Federation of Trade Unions; Mr. Zhang Dongming, Chief Editor of Southern Newspaper Media Group and President of Southern Daily; and Vice President Yan Bing of the OUC, started the training action for thousands of employees and opened Guangdong employee education network (www.zhigongjiaoyu.com) together. Executive Vice Chairman Cheng Zongwen and Party leadership group member Yang Min of the Guangdong Provincial Federation of Trade Unions attended the launch ceremony.

Since 2013, Guangdong Provincial Federation of Trade Unions has been preparing for the training action for thousands of employees, with at least 10 million yuan being spent on employee skill training. By adopting a combined province-city action model, the most competent education training institutions have been chosen as cooperation schools to hold “Skill Empowerment” training classes, which cover over 100 posts, including jobs for CNC lathe men, IT data application operators, bartenders and marketing operators. Teaching is mainly composed of face-to-face tutorials supported by distance education. Hands-on training is given according to the requirements of each position.

A number of the “Skill Empowerment” training classes have now launched following a year of preparation and enrollment. All the classes will be available at the beginning of 2014. The Guangdong Federation for Trade Unions is planning to give direct funding to 7650 employees through the “Skill Empowerment” training, making skill upgrading a reality.

The OUC (Guangzhou Branch) has joined up with Guangzhou Distance Education Centre in developing a public service platform, the Guangdong employee education network. Employees can receive educational training and improve their skills without the need to take time off work by entering themselves for training programmes. They can obtain training certificates by passing examinations on the website.

At the launch ceremony, Chen Zongwen said that the training action aims to improve the quality and core competencies of employees in Guangdong. Upholding the employees’ right to learning and development is a major task for trade unions at all levels in Guangdong so as to adapt to industry transformation and focus more on their core responsibilities. 

Yan Bing indicated that Guangzhou RTVU had gone out of its way to advance the employees’ quality education project, building the “Guangzhou employee education network”, and providing degree and non-degree continuous education to 5.33 million employees all over the municipality. Great achievements have been made in employee education and training in Guangzhou, and a learning city with modern information technology has come into being. He expressed his desire to strengthen cooperation between the OUC and the relevant departments in Guangdong, including the Trade Unions, to work in a down-to-earth manner, to give support to the training action for thousands of employees, to successfully manage the pro-people project to directly benefit the majority of employees, and to contribute to the construction of a learning society in Guangdong.

By Guangzhou RTVU