In order to enhance the friendship between China and Pakistan and to promote the mutual development of the higher education in both countries, on 9 June, Prof. Ali Asghar Chishti, President of Allama Iqbal Open University of Pakistan, along with his party of two other persons, visited the Open University of China (OUC), and signed a cooperation agreement.

Yang Zhijian, President of the OUC, Zhang Hui and Zhang Shaogang, Vice Presidents of the OUC, and Yang Xiaotang, the Assistant to the President, attended the signing ceremony.

Both parties discussed Chinese language teaching, international cooperative projects, 3D printing at the Project Research Centre, talent exchange projects, and so on, and planned to cooperate in such aspects as Chinese language teaching, cooperative research, periodicals, and academic works exchange based on the principles of equality and mutual respect, resource sharing, reciprocity, mutual benefit, and mutual development. Yang Zhijian, President of the OUC, and Prof. Ali Asghar Chishti, President of Allama Iqbal Open University, signed the cooperative agreement on behalf of both parties.

Prof. Ali Asghar Chishti and his party also visited the school history exhibition themed “Deep Integration of Information Technology and Education — From the Radio and TV University to the Open University of China”, inspected the automatic HD recording chamber and examination monitoring system in the Learner Support Centre, and visited the digital library and Chinese Language Centre of the OUC. After visiting, they introduced the Allama Iqbal Open University, which included their teaching faculty, teaching methods, and the achievements obtained by the university and its departments.

It was explained by Prof. Ali Asghar Chishti that the president of Pakistan acted as the honorary president, the minister of the Federal Department of Education as the honorary vice president, and the emphasis placed on domestic distance education by the Pakistani government was stressed.

Both parties in a discussion 

Signing cooperative agreement

Getting to know OUC’s foreign Chinese language teaching 

Experiencing e-books

Experiencing information collection system

Visiting the library

By Yu Minsheng, the OUC