2. Strategies and paths for community education development in open universities from the perspective of collaborative governance
2.1 Maintain concept coordination in order to lay an ideological foundation for collaborative governance
We must establish and adhere to the concept of coordinated development in order to achieve the sustainable development of community education in open universities. Firstly, establishing the development of community education is an inevitable choice during the transition period for open universities. The MOE’s Opinions on Successfully Operating Open Universities Well clearly states that Open universities should “try to become a new type of university serving lifelong learning for all.” This position has clarified that open universities must be the main body “serving lifelong learning for all.” Open universities should “provide extensive education for on-the-job staff, communities, the elderly, and new-type farmers, as well as all kinds of trainings by orienting themselves toward the grassroots, industries, communities, and rural areas, and highlighting their talent formation distinctions and educational operation characteristics.”
The Opinions on Furthering the Community Education Development of Nine Departments including the Ministry of Education promulgated in June 2016 underlined that “all provinces, cities, and prefectures can set up community education instruction institutions by relying on open universities, radio and TV universities, agricultural radio and TV schools, vocational schools, and community schools for science popularity to coordinate and guide community education work in their own areas.” It also emphasised that “the key leading role of county-level vocational education centres, open universities, radio and TV schools, and science popularisation schools in rural community education shall be brought into full play.” By November 2019, 25 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities had issued implementation opinions or action plans for promoting local community education, all of which emphasised giving full play to the important role of open universities in vigorously developing community education and accelerating the construction of a learning society. It is thus evident that community education in open universities is a key requirement and an important institutional arrangement and policy requirement of the Party and government.
It is also necessary to adhere to the concept of serving and satisfying everyone. The Decision on Some Major issues Concerning How to Uphold and Improve the System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and Advance the Modernisation of China's System and Capacity for Governance proposed the formulation of an education system serving lifelong learning for all. We must continue to give priority to developing education, focus on developing education that people are satisfied with, innovate education and learning method, and accelerate the development of a more open and flexible education system that is oriented to, suitable for, and meets the needs of everyone. The sustainable development of community education in open universities and the advancement of community education governance are necessary to develop education for the people and to shape an education system serving lifelong learning for all. This is also an important part of ensuring the people’s livelihood and achieving the modernisation of the education governance system and capacity.
2.2 Aim to coordinate objectives and formulate distinctive guidance for collaborative governance
With its orientation towards society and its characteristics of universality, lack of time constraints, and diversification, community education can be said to embody the ideology of lifelong education. The development and governance of community education is a major indicator of the integrity and improvement of the lifelong education system. To this end, the level of attention given to community education is a touch stone to test if the government and society have truly established a lifelong education ideology.
Vigorously developing community education and improving collaborative governance represent the public benefit goals of all participants, including open universities. In order to achieve these goals, the government should shape the governance system by leveraging extensive cooperation with its internal organisations, non-governmental organisations, and the general public, and to encourage cooperation and interaction between the government, society, and the market. Each subsystem should form an orderly, cooperative and coordinated system that coordinates with one another for common actions by means of law, administration, science and technology, information, and public opinion.
2.3 Focus on system coordination to offer a system guarantee for collaborative governance
The management system of community education refers to the systems and institutions in the organisation system, its structural establishment, the administrative subordination, the administrative authority, and the division of responsibilities related to community education (Chen Nailin, Zhang Zhikun, 2009). The community education operation mechanism mainly deals with the specific systems and laws used during the management process, and is a description and summary of the internal operation process of the management and organisation of community education (Liu Zongjin, 2019).
The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward the establishment of a social governance model based on collaboration, participation, and common interests. It was also indicated that “within the law-based social governance model under which Party committees exercise leadership, the government assumes responsibility, non-governmental actors provide assistance, and the public get involved.” Community education falls within the scope of macro education, relates to several departments in charge, and is tied to social construction and governance. Therefore, the Party building should be a fundamental guiding principle and government coordination must be dominant. Governments at all levels should strengthen coordination and planning, lay out a social development strategy, define objectives and tasks, create good guidance and coordination, solve major problems, provide a policy guarantee, and satisfy their residents’ needs (Chen Nailin, 2014). To this end, government departments should coordinate advancement measures and schools, social organisations, communities, and family individuals should engage in extensive participation. In this way, they can they work in coordination on an equal footing, bring their own advantages into play, and develop community education that satisfies people's needs.
The government plays the leading role in the improvement of the governance system of community education and takes responsibility for the coordination and leadership of the development of community education. The most important thing is to ensure that government departments are aware of the exclusive superiority of open universities in the construction of a lifelong education system. Such education plays an indispensable role in improving people’s livelihoods, serving a harmonious society, and promoting community governance. Governments at all levels should give impetus to the completion and improvement of the five-level governance system of community education in open universities. Provincial and city level community education guidance and service centres should assist the government and education departments in creating good top-down designs, and help the government play its leading role in publicity, overall planning, macro guidance and coordination, and policy guarantees. Open universities should define their “position,” upgrade their “stance,” and strengthen their “guidance.” They should offer a good service, and take the initiative to get in touch with government departments, assist and promote the formulation and improvement of the community education management system, and establish supervision, evaluation, and assessment mechanisms. Policy and funding support is necessary in order to advance the formulation of a mutually-supported community education development model with the coordination of the government and equal collaboration and consensus between the many departments.
The key to improving the five-level governance system lies at and below the county and district levels. County-level community colleges should focus on substantial and standardised construction. In certain places with poor educational conditions or weak aspirations, other non-governmental participants can be mobilised to fully integrate local education resources. Multiple township, neighbourhood, and villagers’ and residents’ committee community education resources, such as cultural centres, social work stations, and adult education institutions, can be utilised to give play to the initiative of multiple participants in community education. Under the leadership of township and neighbourhood governments and educational departments, education and cultural resources can be integrated to set up community schools or learning centres and to facilitate the lifelong learning through one venue with multiple functions. In townships, promoting the transformational development of adult education schools has become one of the most important carriers of community education in rural areas for open universities.
2.4 Develop coordinated processes to promote the orderly operation of collaborative governance
In the course of community education development, there will always be contradictions and problems. It is necessary to strengthen coordination and collaboration and to continue to advance collaborative governance.
First it is necessary to establish funding input. The establishment of a community education input mechanism must be the result of thorough communication and the joint efforts of several different parts of society. Firstly, the financial departments should increase conventional funding to community education in open universities and have it included in the government’s basic public education services if permitted by financial resources. Under the leadership of the government, a host of basic support closely tied to community education development, including daily funding, resource construction, facilities, and team building, is provided (Li Jun, Jia Fan, 2019). Secondly, it is necessary to apply for other special funding from government department projects. By way of service purchase, special appropriation for business can be applied for from spiritual civilisation offices, civil affairs offices, and human resources and social security authorities, as well as agricultural work commissions, women’s federations, youth leagues, and working committees for the care of the next generation, such as training projects for social workers and people from villagers’ and residents’ committees from civil affairs departments, employment and entrepreneurship projects from human resources and social security departments, and teenage training projects from working committees. It is possible for open university community education institutions to get actively involved in these projects and trainings. As such, both services and funding resources can be expanded.
The difficulties presented by a shortage of funds can be mitigated by relying on social strength and by drawing on support for socialised community education services from industrial and specialised social organisations, community social organisations, and private social work institutions. For example, enterprises can offer funding and sponsorship and individual donations can be sought out. Market mechanisms can be introduced to absorb institutions and foundations for community education projects. Efforts should be made to establish a mechanism dominated by financially conventional funds for business and supported by special project funds and social support.
The next step is to establish a teaching and management team. In 2004, the Ministry of Education stated in Several Opinions on Promoting Community Education that it was necessary to “build a management and teaching team adapted to the needs of community education consisting of backbone full-time and part-time staff members and essential part-time staff members and volunteers.” In June 2016, the Opinions on Furthering the Community Education Development of Nine Departments including the Ministry of Education underlined the need “to improve the professional level of community education workers,” and “to deploy full-time managers and teachers of community education to community education colleges or centres.”
Teaching and management teams can be staffed with the help of social organisations. As a third party independent of the government and society, members of social organisations come from all walks of life and have different professional background and skills. It is possible to find a solution to the shortage of teachers by attracting people from social organisations to join the community education teaching team, and they can give community education users lectures, explanations, and tutorials in their spare time.
A standardised and innovative team of knowledgable volunteers should also be built. A thorough survey should be conducted in order to gain a clear understand of the human resources situation. Retirees with special skills, university students, middle school students, and other able people from the communities should be called together for training. They should be managed with a strict, standardised registration system.
This is a model based on equal consultation, coordination, innovation, and resource sharing. The bellwether role of community education in open universities should be brought into play to open resources up to the communities. Both non-degree education course resources and degree education multi-media course resources can be integrated into community education. The diverse needs of community members should be analysed from the perspectives of locality, age, profession, culture, and learning ability in order speed up the construction of newly-added courses. The libraries, computer classrooms, sports facilities of open universities should be fully open to communities. Based on equality and consultation, the resources of other community education participants should be fully used and shared. For example, primary and middle schools, enterprises, public institutions, and non-governmental organisations should be open to the communities. Cultural, sports, science and technology authorities, as well as youth leagues, women’s federations, trade unions, and other departments should be united to bring their existing educational and cultural venues such as libraries, museums, science museums, cultural centres, youth activity centres, women activity centres, and workers’ homes into use by community education. Channels for invisible resources should also be expanded. The civil subjectivity of community residents should be mobilised and utilised to build a digital learning public service platform, to make full use of modern distance education technologies, and to offer a range of education services by closely policy orientations and local economic and social development needs.
2.5 Maintain coordination of purpose to ensure collaborative governance effectively benefits the people
The Party and government aim to develop good quality, equal community education that people are satisfied with around a people-centric philosophy. This is also the purpose of community education in open universities. Those who get the greatest benefit from community education are the community residents. Community education, as a macro type of open, compatible, and inclusive education, must uphold a resident-centric education philosophy, serving ordinary residents and, in particular, disadvantaged residents. Only with the extensive participation and interaction of community residents can community education develop with vigour and vitality.
2.5.1 Bring the advantages and capabilities of social organisations into full play
Open universities should positively engage in cooperation with social organisations for mutual benefits and win-win results.
The involvement of social organisations can be a solution for dull learning contents and stiff methodology. It is helpful to give play to the role of community education in serving people’s livelihoods by relying on social organisations to leverage the strengths of their personnel and mechanisms, to improve quality and service level, to offer rich and colourful community education activities, to enrich the supply of community education, and to meet the needs of the residents to receive education, learn about the arts, and improve their overall quality.
2.5.2 Enrich learning content
Community education is carried out in a diversified, lively way based on the coexistence of professionalism and entertainment, life and work, and social and economic development and the arts (Ye Zhongmin, Xiang Deping, 2015). Community education should increase the proportion of content related to citizens’ attainments, science and technology, law-based society, and entrepreneurship and reemployment. Improving the quality of life of community residents paves the way towards development, modernisation, and services.
2.5.3 Create innovative methodologies
With regards to the learning methods used by community education in open universities, in addition to conventional class-based learning, the superiority of the cultural philosophy that “All radio and TV universities nationwide are part of one family” can be used to organise visits and study tours. In the same city, activities such as community art walks and talent shows can be carried out to encourage new methods of team-based, experiential, and online learning. Rural areas and currently urbanising areas are prioritised with the focus on communities, serving people’s livelihood and meeting their needs (Chen Nailin, 2014). Community education is carried out in grassroots communities to establish learning service circles, learning communities, homestead classrooms, and study rooms, to send community education to community residents’ doorsteps, and to meet the needs of the people for lifelong learning.
2.5.4 Introduce market operation mechanisms
Open universities can cooperate with enterprises and social organisations with a high degree of specialisation through entrustment and service purchasing. The efficiency and effectiveness of the market economy can be borrowed to improve the work capacity of teaching staff in community education, to enhance the vigour and vitality of community education in open universities, and to elevate the efficiency and quality of community education.
About the author: Zhou Yanjun, former executive vice director of the MOE Research & Training Centre for Community Education
Reprinted from No. 2 Volume 2020, Community Education in China