Beijing, 15 January 2020 (Xinhua News Agency) - Sun Chunlan, a member of the Standing Committee of the 19th CPC Central Committee Political Bureau and Vice Premier of the State Council, underlined during her survey of the Open University of China (OUC) on 15 January that General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important instructions on vocational education should be further implemented and that the decisions and deployment of the Party Central Committee and the State Council to deepen vocational education reform, to optimise the structure of highly skilled professionals, and to offer support for high quality economic and social development should be earnestly put in place.
On the afternoon of 17 December 2020, a delegation made up of Weng Tiehui, member of the Party leadership group and vice minister of the Ministry of Education (MOE); Deng Chuanhuai, director of the MOE Department of Policies and Regulations; Cui Baoshi, president of the National Institute of Educational Sciences (NIES); and Xie Li, deputy director of the MOE Department of Vocational and Adult Education, visited the Open University of China (OUC) to investigate its work in lifelong education and attend the North China Symposium on "Building an Education System Serving Lifelong Learning for All".
We are currently entering a critical period in the prevention and control of the COVID-19 epidemic. Based on a series of important instructions given by General Secretary Xi Jinping for epidemic prevention and control and the work arrangement of the Ministry of Education (MOE), the Party Committee of the Open University of China (OUC) attaches great importance to epidemic prevention and control work, and is actively implementing various prevention and control requirements. The university is concerned for the health of its 100,000 teachers and more than 4 million students and their families across China, in particular, teachers, students, and their families in branches in Hubei and Wuhan.
On 24 February 2020, Jing Degang, secretary of the Party Committee and president of the Open University of China (OUC), gave a live video speech on "Patriotism and Growth,” marking the first lesson of the new term for students and staff of the OUC across China.
On 9 March 2020, the Open University of China (OUC) convened the its 2020 Annual Work Conference and the Conference to Coordinate Epidemic Prevention and Control Efforts and OUC Development and Deployment.
On 15 March 2020, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee Xi Jinping wrote a letter to Party members born in the 1990s from Peking University's medical team who were sent to Hubei province, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in China. He extended sincere greetings to them and all the other young people fighting on the frontline of epidemic prevention and control, encouraging Chinese youth everywhere to contribute to the fight against the coronavirus outbreak.
On 15 August 2020, at the AI + Education Development Sub-forum of AIEXPO2020 jointly organised by the Open University of China (OUC), Baidu, and Baizhi Tiantuo Co., Ltd, Baidu and its cooperative partner Baizhi Tiantuo signed a cooperation agreement with the OUC on the establishment of the New Generation Information Technology College to boost the OUC’s vocational education for AI professionals
At 10am on 31 August 2020, Cao Guoyong, executive deputy secretary of the CPC Committee of the Open University of China (OUC), launched the OUC’s 2020 autumn semester with a live video broadcast to all the students and teaching staff of the national system of open universities. The topic of this “first class” was “Building a First-Class Global Open University.”