Promoting and carrying forward community education is a new channel for the Open University of China (OUC) system to serve lifelong learning in China.

In this crucial moment in the fight against the spread of COVID-19, communities are the first line of defence for prevention and control. In order to implement prevention and control measures in communities and effectively curb the spread of COVID-19, the MOE Research and Training Centre for Community Education located at the OUC is working with community education guidance centres and community universities operating through the OUC system at all levels to exert the advantages of the system to open and share learning resources aimed at spreading scientific concepts, contributing to the battle against the virus.

On 31 January 2020, the OUC issued a notice entitled Prevention and Control of the Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Epidemic, which requested that the OUC system should focus on prevention work. The OUC headquarters took the lead in opening digital learning resources including 26,000 minutes of video classes on community education covering topics such as health education, citizen quality education, 17,000 minutes of OUC video lectures, 37,000 micro-lectures, 81 MOOC general education courses, and 300 online degree education courses. In addition, in face of the current situation, the OUC immediately responded and deployed resources to design and develop a series of micro-lectures including “Prevention and Control of the Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Epidemic” and “Healthy Psychology and the Rational Prevention of the Epidemic” and launched them online for public use.

The MOE Research and Training Centre for Community Education has also cooperated with several organisations to coordinate quality educational resources and open an official WeChat account named “Community Education Lectures” to enable community members, in particular, the elderly, to learn on mobile terminals. The official WeChat account brings together over 1,000 quality micro-lectures covering topics such as science popularisation, art, health, and daily life, with current page views reaching 32,000 persons/times.

By Du Ruo, OUC