Recently, Anhui Radio & TV University (RTVU) carried out targeted information technology training for teachers from Anhui University who had presided over adult education curriculum reform. As it is undertaking the first national government-led "Online Adult Education Park" project, Anhui RTVU will conduct training for teaching staff from Anhui Normal University, Anhui Agricultural University, Anhui University of Technology, Anhui University of Finance and Economics, and Anhui University of Chinese Medicine.
"Online Adult Education Park" refers to Anhui’s online adult education platform, which is an important part of the reform of Anhui Province’s distance teaching model and ICT construction for adult higher education. This not only forms an important part of the plan to revitalize higher education in Anhui Province; it is also the first national adult education reform project led, planned, designed, and specially funded by a provincial government.
According to Chu Changlian, Director of Higher Education Division of Anhui Education Department, the project aims to address problems such as management structure, creating time for learning and ensuring training quality of correspondence education in higher education institutions. In a deeper sense, the project aims to use the "Online Adult Education Park" to grasp the morphological changes of education in the Internet age, and explore the road to build a new model of open education for the future.
The online adult education platform will provide efficient access and learning services for learners, teachers, service personnel, management staff, and colleges/universities. Upon entering the portal, users can select and register with any university that has joined the Park, and then select the course they want to learn. Users are provided with an interactive learning and can pre-register for exams at anytime. For example, Wang Weiwei, an ordinary employee in a catering business, had been complaining that she cannot spare the time for further study. Earlier this year, she registered online for an accounting course. She has logged in to the portal 200 times to study the course within six months and has submitted homework eight times.
Zheng Hanhua, President of Anhui RTVU said that as a winning bidder of a national-level continuing education base and national knowledge update project for professional technical staff, Anhui RTVU is familiar with distance education. However, undertaking the management of the “Park” will be challenging. The role of Anhui RTVU is as a service provider, so as education expands it must be equipped with excellent service skills.
Earlier this year, Anhui Province took the lead in making an online learning site for adult higher education accessible. The site can currently support 500,000 registered users, with 120,000 users online concurrently. 73 courses and 1,351 separate resources have been uploaded. Since the first batch of six universities joined the “Park”, Anhui University of Science & Technology and another 10 universities have joined, taking the total number of institutions to 16. Next year, all 33 universities in Anhui Province will enter the “Park”. By then, the credit bank and other functions will be fully equipped and hundreds of thousands of adult education college students will be able to benefit. In the future, the platform will also support access from mobile devices.
By Anhui RTVU