On 26 September 2020, the Xi’an Branch of the Open University of China (OUC) held a conference to celebrate the beginning of the 2020 autumn semester, to award degrees, and to commend outstanding graduates.

Zhao Liling, deputy Party secretary and branch president, expressed four hopes to the teachers and students. First, she said that everyone would cherish what they have. Today’s society is undergoing unprecedented change, with industrialisation and information technology growing daily, along with competition for skilled labour. As a result, learners and educators both should keep pace with the times, constantly growing in political awareness and understanding, and connecting the realisation of their values and responsibilities with the needs of national development. A new relationship of students and teachers that attends to the opinions of the former should be developed, so as to combine the strengths of teaching and learning and promote their common development. Second, we must learn to learn and think. Open universities these days have a profound impact on the training of regional talent, scientific research, and the preservation of cultural heritage; university faculty and other staff should bravely assume responsibilities and dare to innovate, enhancing these through interactions and exchanges at work. We should focus on learners, and enhance our teaching to make them thinkers, not just receptacles of information. We should enable students to initiate proposals for teaching reform and apply at work with what they have learned at the university, contributing to the socialist construction of the country in the new era. Third, we must focus on practical innovation. The OUC, composed of 44 local open universities with more than 4 million students, has built a smart learning system supported by big-data services in both urban and rural areas. A teaching system supporting co-existence of all the open universities in the system, and integrating online and offline education, has been established, demonstrating the strength of the national system and the “level playing field” of education that it offers. Finally, she expressed the hope that students would focus on practical applications of their studies, and learn to cooperate in order to make common progress in teaching and training.   

Zhao Liling turned the tassels and straightened the caps of the student representatives who were being awarded bachelor degrees, and presented them diplomas. Song Jun, a Party committee member, and vice president of the Xi’an branch, read out the student commendations, and university leaders delivered certificates to the winners.

He Yue and Kong Fanxing, student representatives from the No. 1 and No. 3 divisions directly under the Xi’an Branch, who were awarded bachelor degrees, and Pang Yong, a student representative, “National Model Worker”, and winner of the “National May 1st Labour Medal”, gave speeches at the meeting. Chen Shengbing, a teacher in the Teaching department, congratulated the graduates and sincerely welcomed the freshmen on behalf of the faculty.

Li Bin, Party secretary of the Xi’an Branch, expressed four hopes in his closing speech. First, he hoped the students would cherish their opportunity to study at the university, and noted that open and distance education allows them to receive higher education while working. He also hoped they would make full use of this opportunity to constantly improve themselves. Second, he said they should learn how to study, becoming skilled at self-directed network-based learning, taking advantage of modern information technology for research, and making use of a variety of teaching media. Third, he stated that he expected them to study hard. They would face many difficulties undertaking this kind of education, and would need to deal with the challenges of combining work with their studies and family lives by making sound plans, learning from scholarship winners and outstanding graduates, and persevering to the end. Fourth, he hoped they would put what they learned to good use, applying it in their jobs and striving to innovate. He noted that the curtain of a new era is rising on the Xi 'an Branch, and urged students to forge ahead by adhering to Xi Jinping’s socialist ideology with Chinese characteristics, and take advantage of the efforts to heighten the national profile of the city of Xi’an.

By Xi’an Branch