In the spring semester of 2021, 12,744 new students enrolled at Qingdao Open University (Qingdao OU) in order to enhance their degrees, a 14% increase over the previous year. In 2019, 15,000 students registered, and 22,000 in 2020.

Recent years have seen increasing demand for continuing education among residents of Qingdao.

From those new to work to the retired, from army students to technicians in enterprises, from those upgrading degrees to those consolidating their professional skills, and those in the “One College Student Per Village” programme to those studying to work in logistics or on cruise ships, Qingdao OU has over 40 years of experience helping any member of the public learn anytime, anywhere. With education so easy to obtain, lifelong learning has become deeply rooted in the city.

More and more people are taking part in lifelong learning

Enhancing professional skills

This year, Qingdao OU is promoting study of the history of the CPC along with university-enterprise collaboration in order to enhance its operations  and adaptability, enriching teaching resources and opening learning channels. Lifelong education and online access are both being promoted with the ultimate aim of upgrading the workforce and contributing to the economic and social development of Qingdao.

The university has connected with enterprises in a variety of industries in order to understand their staffing needs, and established strategic cooperation with Yum China Qingdao Market and Qingdao Bright-moon Seaweed Group. Schooling has been set up within enterprises to allow workers to train and work at the same time, and the university is collaborating with the Gaoxin District Public Security Sub-bureau in the training of auxiliary police. It has launched the “10-thousand Talents” plan for rural revitalisation to train grassroots rural cadres for Qingdao over the next five years via the“One College Student Per Village” programme, and is offering degree education to cadres on village Party-branch and villager committees. The secretary of the Party Committee and president of the university themselves have given classes as a way of  guaranteeing the seriousness of efforts at rural revitalisation in Shandong.

Qingdao OU will continue to promote the construction of educational services aimed at skills enhancement.

Skills training will continue to be emphasised in Qingdao, with a continuing-education platform provided to allow for remote on-the-job learning via a system that implements enrollment and accreditation, and has tolerant entrance but strict graduation requirements. The plan is to enrol at least 20,000 students every year, with at least 20% undergraduates, and support offered to holder of master's degrees and higher.

A focus on teacher training is expected to lead to the construction of a team of high-quality teachers, promoting the all-round development of open education.

The specialties and disciplines offered will be adjusted on the basis of industry needs, and those of the economic and social development of Qingdao, with graduates trained not just in terms of particular skills, but of the ability to acquire new ones over the course of their lives.

In order to optimise learner support, a one-stop distance-education cloud platform and mobile terminal, integrating teaching, learning, administration, research and services, will be built. Learners will be given more choices, and a platform suitable for autonomous learning and to connect teachers and students will also be constructed.

Qingdao OU welcomes every learner

Qingdao OU has 68,000 active students, 7,686 grassroots students involved in rural revitalisation, and 4,602 older adults registered for classes. About 96,000 entrepreneurship lessons have been given, 15.12 million clicks have been recorded on the learning network, 42.116 million visits are received each day at the Qingdao Cadre Online School, and an average of 40,000 non-degree continuing-education lessons are given every year.

The report to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China stated that “we will improve continuing education, step up efforts to build a learning society, and promote the well-rounded development of all our people”. It gave direction to the transformation of Qingdao OU, and since December 2020 the university has focused on building lifelong, online and flexible education platforms, as well as external cooperation via the modern distance-education network covering urban and rural areas nationwide.

The goal of Qingdao OU is to give every resident of Qingdao convenient access to high-quality educational resources at any time.

Reprinted by the OUC News Network from people.cn