On 21st March 2023, after being established for only 18 days, the first class of the Seniors University of China (SUC) officially began.
At 9:30 a.m., in a classroom at the Wei Gongcun campus in Beijing, the sound of music filled the air as over 40 silver-haired students, under the guidance of teacher Zhang Qinqi, began learning about music notation and singing. This semester, over 800 middle-aged and elderly people will enter the campus of the SUC to take practical courses such as smartphone applications, painting, vocal music, and physical training. At the same time, the national elderly education public service platform established by the university offers over 4 million minutes of courses and resources across more than 400,000 subjects, which are available for free to the elderly population.
The Changde Open University in Hunan has established a computer literacy class for middle-aged and elderly individuals. Enthusiastic students who have completed the training have joined the volunteer team to serve as assistant teachers for the computer literacy class.
Difficulty in Getting a Seat from Universities in Large and Medium-Sized Cities
China's first senior university was established in Shandong in 1983. After 40 years of rapid development, China's elderly education has achieved historic achievements and has become the largest, most strictly managed, and highest quality senior education system in the world. It has become a shining example in the development of China's ageing industry.
According to statistics, in 2022, China's elderly population aged 60 and above has exceeded 280 million, accounting for nearly 20% of the population. The majority of these seniors are middle-aged and low-aged elderly, with over half of them aged 60 to 69. More than one-tenth of the elderly population has received education at a high school level or above. "With the accelerating development of an ageing population, especially with a large number of low-aged and healthy seniors with a good educational foundation joining the ranks of the elderly, it has exacerbated the imbalance and inadequacy of the development of elderly education. It is common for senior universities in large and medium-sized cities to be in high demand," said Wu Yushao, deputy dean of the Institute of Ageing at Fudan University and former deputy director of the National Ageing Office, to reporters.
As Wu explained, China entered a period of rapid ageing in 2022, which is expected to last for 14 years. According to the Five-Year Plan for the Development of National Elderly Education and the National Ageing Industry Plan, by the end of the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan," the proportion of elderly people receiving various types of elderly education should reach 20% of the total elderly population. However, from the current situation, there is still a significant gap from this planning goal. "Meeting the demand of billions of elderly people for elderly education and accelerating its development is the top priority of elderly education," Wu said.
"The Release of a 'Second Demographic Dividend' Through Elderly Education"
Currently, China is in an important new era of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the country's transition to the centre of the world stage. At the same time, China is entering an ageing society at an unprecedented speed compared to the rest of the world, and the elderly education industry has been entrusted with an unprecedented mission and task.
"Elderly education is a new powerhouse that unleashes the 'second demographic dividend' for the emerging superpower," said Li Weidong, a researcher at the Health and Development Research Centre of the School of Public Management at Tsinghua University, in an interview with reporters. We must recognise the significant importance of developing the elderly education industry from this perspective."
Releasing the productivity and creativity of the elderly population has become an important direction for creating the "second demographic dividend." The purpose of elderly education, which is based on the principles of “virtue, learning, health, happiness, and accomplishment”, has also elevated from an individual level to a significant strategic requirement for sustainable national development. "Elderly education aims to make older adults happy and contribute to the development of the country. In the future, the elderly population aged 60 and above will account for one-third of China's total population. Therefore, it can be estimated that for each year an elderly person works for the country, approximately 30 trillion yuan of economic value will be created," Li said.
Chen Gong, director of the China Research Centre on Ageing and director of the Institute of Population Research at Peking University, holds a similar view. "Elderly education can provide knowledge supplementation, promote health and enhance abilities, enabling older adults to achieve a better 'second act' in their lives," he said.
Chen also told reporters that the United Nations advocates that "older people, as long as they are willing and able, can continue to engage in productive work. Society should stimulate the enthusiasm and motivation of older people to continue working, impart the knowledge, skills, and behavioral norms required for economic and technological development, and enable them to smoothly achieve social reintegration by assuming new social roles and building new social relationships." By providing re-education or training for the elderly, digital literacy and occupational skills can be improved, allowing older adults to better adapt to the rapid development of science and technology, enhancing their competitiveness in the labor market, and increasing their willingness and ability to participate in society and re-enter the workforce. In addition, elderly education institutions can also improve the health behavior of older adults through health education, prevent various diseases, extend healthy life expectancy, improve the ability to live independently and serve families and the labour market.
Extension of Elderly Education to Rural Communities
"Expanding elderly education services to urban and rural communities is an inevitable choice to increase the supply of elderly education services and meet the learning needs of older adults in nearby and convenient locations," said Zhu Yaoyin, vice president of the China Association of Social Welfare and Senior Care Services and Professor at the Institute of Education and Social Development at Beijing Normal University. Developing community elderly education is not only a key task of community education but also the work center of the elderly education system. It is a necessary measure to develop community-based home care services, enrich the spiritual life of older adults, and provide an effective platform for them to play an active role and participate in grassroots social governance. It is crucial for improving the quality of life and life expectancy of older adults.
However, there are also some difficulties in the development of community elderly education, such as funding constraints, weak targeting of teaching content, uneven teacher quality, inflexible teaching methods, and inadequate integration of funding resources. Zhu believes that to solve these problems, it is necessary to strengthen the basic research and system design of elderly education, improve diversified investment mechanisms, strengthen the integration and utilization of elderly education funding resources, and enhance the targeting and practicality of teaching content through the application of digital methods.
Du Peng, vice president of the China Population Association and vice president of Renmin University of China, has proposed suggestions for promoting the construction of policies and regulations for elderly education. "At the national level, relevant laws and regulations on 'elderly education' or 'lifelong education' should be introduced as soon as possible to effectively plan the funding, faculty allocation, institution and venue, operation and management, and curriculum setting of establishing elderly universities," he said. He holds the same view as Professor Zhu that promoting the extension of elderly universities to urban and rural communities is important. "In the future, the focus of elderly university construction should be on relatively weaker rural and western regions, and efforts should be made to achieve full coverage at the county and township levels," he added.
Du believes that at the practical level, the construction of the SUC can promote the innovation of China's elderly university system and model. "The SUC should integrate excellent teachers and teaching resources from across the country, promote the standardization of elderly university courses and teaching materials, and provide a template for reference and learning for elderly universities nationwide. At the same time, by leveraging the Internet, new media, and online education platforms, diversified elderly education models can be developed to achieve the sharing of high-quality educational resources," he said.
" The SUC relies on the teaching system of the Open University of China (OUC) and has established 44 provincial branches across the country, of which 30 have established specialized elderly education institutions. There are over 55,000 elderly education learning sites at the grassroots level," said Jing Degang, secretary of the Party Committee and president of the OUC. The SUC will create three important platforms focusing on leisure and entertainment, proactive health, skills improvement, and educational attainment. These platforms include an inclusive elderly education public service platform, an expandable empowering platform for elderly education, and a selective value-added platform for elderly education. Both online and offline teaching modes will be combined to form a gridded and three-dimensional educational system that serves nearly 300 million elderly people throughout the country, allowing them to "enjoy their old age while learning." Jing said.
Reprinted by OUC News Network from 5th page of China Education Daily published on 4 April 2023