III. Vision and goal

The three essential factors for the internationalisation of higher education are the internationalisation of students, the internationalisation of teachers, and the internationalisation of courses. Similarly, open and distance education, as an indispensable part of higher education, must also possess the three convergent essential factors mentioned above. In fact, as the international exchanges and cooperation conducted by the OUC and its organisation system have expanded, new demands have been set for open education. According to my understanding, in the new phase and new era, open and distance education must be strengthened in the following respects if it is to adapt to the development needs of the new era and to realise education modernisation in a real sense.

The first is to positively make attempts to develop students with international vision. The students that the OUC trains are mainly on-the-job adults, including degree and non-degree students. In order to intensify our efforts to promote the internationalisation of open education, we actively try to train students that have an international vision. In this respect, we rely on overseas study centres to connect overseas and foreign open universities or other higher education institutions and establish overseas and foreign cooperation partnerships. We have launched various exchange activities targeted at non-degree students, such as overseas study tours, short term trainings, short term exchanges, and visits. By beginning with these activities, we hope to explore new paths to train open education degree students with international vision.

The second is to build an open education teaching team with international vision. China Education Modernisation 2035 indicated that “a professional, innovative, high quality teaching team is essential to accelerate education modernisation.” The OUC and its organisation system must make the construction of an open education teaching team as a foundation for the construction of a teaching team with internet-based thought. They are loyal to the Party’s education cause, attach importance to the Party’s political goal, take effective measures to address real issues, make breakthroughs, and seek practical outcomes. Meanwhile, we must continue to enrich the international background of our teachers, and introduce high-level talents with overseas learning or research experience. We should select excellent backbone teachers and management personnel to go to high-level overseas universities or research institutions for training, further study, visiting study, and academic exchanges. We should intensify our efforts to ensure the employment of several foreign experts and teachers every year, including experts from different specialisations, as well as experts and scholars in the field of distance education.

The third is to improve the capacity to identify and apply global teaching resources and to promote the “going global” of quality education resources. From the launch of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s open courseware movement to the implementation of UNESCO’s open education resource projects and to the popularisation of MOOCs, open education resources have broken through the shackles of traditional education to promote the process of knowledge sharing, and to free learners from the constraints of time and space. The OUC has gathered more than 51,000 courses for high quality education resources and 33,000 five-minute micro-courses suitable for mobile, individual, and fragmented learning. The courses cover 11 categories including literature, arts, history, and culture. With the deepening of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s further cooperation with countries along the route of the initiative is inevitable. We will strengthen market surveys and the classification of cooperation partners so as to match China’s quality education resources with the actual needs of its people, accelerate the conversion of a large number of Chinese language resources into multiple languages using artificial intelligence, and present quality digital learning resources to the world.

The fourth is to establish a globally-integrated open education quality guarantee system. Thanks to the consistent development of multiple forms of open education, learners not only have more choice, they also have higher requirements for teaching and service quality. If the OUC organisation system is to be competitive, we must improve and guarantee the quality of open education. On the one hand, it is necessary for the OUC organisation system to establish and improve an internal quality guarantee system, to complete relevant documentation, to establish an effective quality guarantee system, and to focus on strengthening a quality guarantee and improvement mechanism for discipline and specialty construction, the teaching team, support services, and assessments and examinations. On the other hand, the OUC educational organisation system should improve and put into operation practical experience by referring to and learning from the open education quality guarantee system to promote the integration of China’s open education quality with the world.

The fifth is to build a world-leading information-based support environment. With the support of modern information technology and by adapting to the development trends of modern information technology, the OUC has built a new three-in-one “one route, one network, and one platform” model integrating education and information technology. In terms of the digital learning environment, a distance education cloud platform has been built in order to unify and integrate the operation of teaching, learning, examinations, evaluation, management, services, and research. We have built 538 cloud classrooms in 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the administration of the central government of mainland China, covering the western areas of Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, and Sichuan, and has also entered countries along the route of the Belt and Road Initiative such as Tanzania and Pakistan. The international development of the OUC organisation system has placed greater demands on open education, and information-based open education in the new era can’t exist without artificial intelligence, 5G, big data, Internet of Things, and block chain, among others. These new forms of business and new technologies will bring about new changes for distance education in China. The OUC and its organisation system need to strengthen cooperation with Chinese information technology companies and higher education institutions in order to promote the implementation and application of new technologies.

The sixth is to combine the advantages of the OUC organisation system to apply for the right to confer professional master’s degrees. Within the global open university system, it has become a common practice to offer higher education in line with the market demands. With the development of information technology, more and more learners in China hope to improve their own education and degree level through open education, which has presented an opportunity for the OUC and its organisation system to offer master’s degree education. The OUC has to gather the strength of its organisation system in order to explore new models and paths for applied postgraduate education and to promote the reform of postgraduate training mechanisms.

The seventh is to focus on creating an atmosphere of scientific research in open universities and their organisation system. Over the past 40 years, the OUC has satisfied the needs of a large number of people for on-the-job learning and degree conferral. It has explored a path to achieving continuing education in China, accumulated operation experience that serves lifelong learning, and made positive contributions to China’s reform and opening up and social development. The OUC organisation system has long been positioned at the level of a “teaching” institution. If the OUC organisation system is to become one the world’s first-class open universities, we must gradually strengthen scientific research. The open university organisation system is unique in both China and the world. We must leverage the advantages of the system, make use of regional characteristics, and strengthen the co-development effect. We must try to receive major national projects, establish an influential academic brand, create high quality convertible research achievements, train a number of authoritative experts and academic leaders in the field of open and distance education, and create a cultural environment wherein people strive for excellence in the scientific research of open universities. Meanwhile, we should strengthen cooperation with international organisations in the field of open and distance education and other relevant disciplines, and take an active part in bilateral and multilateral regional and global scientific research exchange and cooperation with high-level overseas open universities.

The eighth is to create characteristics by giving play to the system’s regional advantages. To date, the OUC organisation system has gradually engaged in distinctive international cooperation and exchange programmes by making use of its regional advantages. For example, the OUC Huaqiao College has offered international Chinese language education and conducted cultural exchange oriented towards global Chinese language learners, Chinese people all over the world, and foreigners in Chengdu in particular by making use of an “Internet + Chinese” model with online and offline integration. The OUC Huaqiao College has made valuable practical explorations, accumulating rich experience for similar projects in the future. In future, we will leverage our regional advantages to create unique international cooperation and exchange programmes. For instance, we will carry out exchange programmes with the Hantang Institute International in Shaanxi and other northwestern regions, cooperation and exchanges with the Republic of Korea, Japan, and Russia in the northeastern regions, directional cooperation and exchanges with Mongolia in Inner Mongolia, and cooperation and exchanges related to Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand in Yunnan and Fujian.

By OUC Voice WeChat Official Account Reprinted from March 2020 monthly magazine of International Education Exchange