II. Role of open universities in the building of a learning society

In light of the close relationship between open universities and the building of a learning society, the former must play an important role in the development of the latter. We can interpret this role as the role played by the OUC in building the learning society. The OUC, founded across the former Central China Radio and TV University, plays a key positive role in promoting the building and development of a learning society throughout China.

(I) The “main force” in the building of a learning society

Hutchins explores “university” in detail in one chapter of his book The Learning Society. The significant role of the university in the building of a learning society is thus clear. Compared with regular universities, open universities and their huge educational networks, as well as various kinds of learning support and broad service groups, need to cope with the diverse learning needs of various kinds of learners across society. It is their responsibility to be the driving force behind building of a learning society.

Ever since its establishment, the OUC has made positive contributions to “the OUC community” operations, established an educational network that covers urban and rural areas throughout the country, and assumed its role as the driving force in building a learning society. The OUC consists of a headquarters, branches, colleges, and study centres. The headquarters lead the entire educational organisation; the branches are sub-leading bodies across all provinces, regions, and municipalities, and it is up to them to build, manage, and coordinate colleges and study centres under the overall operational guidance of the headquarters; the colleges include local, industrial, corporate, specialised, and experimental ones. Besides local colleges built and managed by branches, and experimental schools built and managed separately by branches or the headquarters, the remaining second class colleges are jointly built and managed by the headquarters or branches and corresponding organisations. The study centers are oriented directly to learners, and are managed and guided by branches and colleges. They are set up either outside or within industrial corporations. With regard to the organisation form, the OUC has energetically developed non-degree continuing education while steadily promoting continuing degree education in recent years. Breakthroughs have been made in talent formation during the Twelfth Five-Year-Plan period, with the OUC receiving the right to confer bachelor’s degrees. The OUC founded the Open University Older Adults, built 58 experimental centres or bases for community education, and conducted all kinds of trainings oriented toward primary and middle school teachers. These achievements made possible the OUC providing a broader population with diverse, individualised learning support to the best of its capacity. The OUC has thus far registered 3.59 million active students. Among them, 1.05 million are undergraduate students, and 2.54 million are junior college students, including nearly 200,000 farmers, 100,000 soldiers, and over 6,000 disabled students. It is clear that the OUC, based on its massive teaching scale, is making every effort to mobilise the main bodies in its educational system to provide lifelong learning opportunities to individuals in need of education, thus effectively advancing the building of a learning society in China.

(II) The “advocates” for building a learning society

The foundation of building a learning society is that “those who learn can be taught, and make accomplishments, and that what is learned can be useful.” The goal is that “everyone access education without distinction, and is taught to achieve success.” The way to achieve this goal is through the principle of “always having learning available for everyone, everywhere.” The three naturally unify in the realisation of a learning society’s core value, which is improving the quality of citizens. In accordance with these expressions of the foundation, goal, and way forward, the logical conclusion is that the essence of a learning society is to seek development through learning, in hopes of promoting sustainable development of an entire society through lifelong and comprehensive learning for all. In making a general strategy for its own development, the OUC fully integrates the concept of constructing a learning society, acts as advocate for building a learning society, whether in the spread of its educational ideas or in the expansion of practices and the like. The establishment of open universities is based on the needs of build a learning society, and its educational mission agrees with the core purpose of building a learning society. In terms of mission, except for the above-mentioned core educational philosophy, the historical mission of the OUC is to adapt to national economic and social development needs, and the all-round development of people. Promoting the construction of a lifelong education system, and encouraging lifelong learning for all, are behind strategic goals such as building the OUC into a major pivot force in Chinese society. As an example, one of the tasks is to build a lifelong learning “bridge”.

(III) The “coordinators” in the building of a learning society

The building of a learning society is a complex project in need of coordination and support from all of society, including schools, enterprises, public institutions, and government departments. Of them, the government plays the core role of planning coordination of building a learning society. It constantly pushes the construction of a learning society forward by way of making building plans, formulating policies, laws and regulations, investing funds, and conducting supervision and evaluation. The OUC, as an educational institution run by the government, acts as “coordinators” by making use of its massive multi-leveled educational network to assist the government to carry on the building of the learning society. In 2015, the OUC implemented the “1314 Project,” which includes “one core principle,” “three pillars,” “one link,” and “four foci.” The “one link” refers to the credit bank. Learners can have their completed individual learning experiences and courses transferred into credits and deposited in their own individual learning accounts. They can obtain corresponding certificates and academic diplomas when the credits in the accounts reach a particular degree. With the help of the credit bank, open universities are able to accumulate, transfer, and certify various learning results, and connect all kinds of education at various levels to build a lifelong learning “bridge.” This measure promoted educational equality and learning for all, as well as the formulation and development of a lifelong learning system and learning society. Such coordination is highlighted by the OUC’s cooperation with all stakeholders across a learning society. The building of a learning society is not just relying on only a few main bodies. In addition to the government, it is necessary to mobilise stakeholders such as schools, enterprises, public institutions, non-governmental organisations, various other organisations, and educational institutions. Obtaining more learning resources is possible by integrating quality educational resources and technology. Stronger social forces can promote social cohesion as well. In operating open universities, efforts have been made to establish a link bridging all parties, to encourage the cooperation and participation of relevant stakeholders. In addition to the educational network covering urban and rural areas throughout the country, the OUC has also explored the establishment of the four support alliances of universities, industries, corporations and cities; in the meantime, industrial colleges are established in cooperation with industrial associations.

III. Expansion of multiple roles of open universities in the building of a learning society

Based on the above analyses, it is known that in the close correlation between open universities and the building of a learning society, open universities carry out diverse, irreplaceable duties. For years, the OUC has given impetus to these roles with its explorations and practices, and has positively pushed forward the building of a learning society in China. Due to higher demands for progress in the building of a learning society at the 19th CPC National Congress, the OUC, as the creator of Chinese open universities, has the responsibility and capability to further expand its diversified role in the building of the learning society, so as to implement better the spirit of the 19th CPC National Congress, and to provide experience and serve as a reference for other open universities to participate in the building of a learning society.

(I) Emphasising the open education concept

A learning society is an open whole crossing boundaries between organisations and departments. It connects all the social sectors, and supports people’s learning in their lives. The OUC has put forward five core philosophies of openness, responsibility, quality, diversification, and internationalisation, with “openness” at the core as the programmatic one leading the realisation of others. It can be seen that the philosophy of “openness” adhered to by both a learning society and open universities is coherent and mutually supportive. The so-called openness is to emphasise the openness in education ideology, operations, learning goals, training modes, management practices, and educational resources. Whatever is favourable for national development, social progress, and the ideas, ways, modes, and actions needed by ordinary people can be chosen and practised. By establishing the “OUC community,” the OUC tries its best to practices a philosophy of “openness” by taking such measures as upgrading the construction of educational information technologies, exploring the “Six-Network Integration” learner development model, boosting the construction of the “credit bank,” vigorously advancing non-degree education, expanding international exchange and cooperation, and enhancing distance education research. Open universities need to sustain the implementation of the core philosophy of “openness” in accelerating the building of the learning society. While paying attention to individuals, the increase and enhanced application of knowledge are also highlighted to benefit the economy and society, to serve the sustainable development of local, regional, and national knowledge-based economies, and to play a dominant role in shaping a democratic, culturally advanced, inclusive society.

(II) Highlighting the dominant position of learners

To the notion that “some people are not able to receive education due to mental retardation, for people are differentiated in their intelligence,” the Czech educator Johann Amos Comenius once responded that, “We could hardly find a mirror too blurring to reflect any image, and we could hardly find a board too rough to draw anything on, either.” Thus, the OUC knows and practices that everyone has the ability to receive education. This belief also forms an underlying principle of Hutchins’ concept of the learning society. He found that, from both subjective and objective perspectives, people longed for knowledge, and that a great part of people’s natural gifts were not activated, further affirming that principle. The benefits of a learning society are related to the development of society and education, but more to the important overall lifelong development of individuals. In accordance with this, open universities offer different groups open and distance education that they need, and pay great attention to meet the needs of all learners with autonomous, individualised learning support through modern information technologies. To this end, teaching and learning through open universities stress linking the values of people’s lifelong development closely with the building of a learning society. As such, open universities must begin with supporting learners to provide diversified learning support based on the needs of each learner. For example, the OUC has extremely rich e-learning resources, including core online courses, five-minute lectures, and common knowledge courses. While more funds are invested to accelerate the expansion of these resources, more attention can be given to issues like resource quality, integration, and access and sharing which adequately meets the needs of learners at different levels.

(III) Strengthening the contact and cooperation of all parties

Though open universities are the main builders of the learning society, it is impossible to advance the huge project of building a learning society by relying only on their strength. To succeed, the strength of all social parties must be united into a joint effort. The building of a learning society will unite these main bodies, both one of the prerequisites and one of its objectives. It has been mentioned above that the OUC also has four supporting alliances and industrial colleges besides its educational network covering the entire country. This has laid a solid foundation for uniting different stakeholders in the building of the learning society. During the course of coordinating all these main parties in building a learning society, the OUC can continue to expand connections and cooperation with an increasing number of stakeholders, ranging from communities and universities to enterprises, non-governmental organisations, and private institutions. It can strengthen and deepen existing cooperation, and take further steps to regulate, optimise, and innovate the overall cooperation mechanism. Therefore, education of various kinds at all levels, from degree to non-degree, and pre-vocational to post-vocational, education programs are all closely linked to formulate lifelong learning “bridges.” These bridges utilise the credit bank to transfer and certify learning results, leveraging the OUC’s coordination and integration functions in building the learning society.

(This is a second prize winner of the 2017 OUC Essay Competition.)

By Jiang Yilu, OUC