Zhang Xiaolan, vice chairperson and secretary of the All-China Women’s Federation Secretariat, and Liu Chen, vice president of the Open University of China (OUC), recently attended a promotion meeting.

Nearly 100 people, including responsible personnel from relevant departments of the OUC and women’s federations in pilot cities, OUC branch schools and local colleges, and learners from the “Brilliant Life: A Lifelong Learning Plan for Women” participated in the meeting. The meeting was presided over by the vice minister of the publicity department of the All-China Women’s Federation. 

Zhang Xiaolan delivered a speech in which she affirmed the positive results achieved by “Brilliant Life: A Lifelong Learning Plan for Women” and restated the significance of the plan. Zhang stressed that it was important to continue to promote the lifelong learning plan for women in future in order to further improve ideological awareness and social mobility, and strengthen work in pilot cities. Zhang hopes that the OUC system will make full use of integrated online and offline learning and continue to focus on platform upgrading, video recording, and course production. At the same time, Zhang hopes that women’s federations at all levels will strengthen cooperation with the OUC and strive to make greater progress in the second year of the plan with regard to mutual understanding, joint planning, shared resources, and collaborative efforts.

Liu Chen noted that close cooperation with the All-China Women’s Federation in order to jointly implement “Brilliant Life: A Lifelong Learning Plan for Women” is an essential part of the OUC’s school-running concept, social responsibilities, and promotion of lifelong learning for all, as well as an important driving force for its intensified educational and teaching reform. Over the past year, the All-China Women’s Federation and OUC project team have made substantial progress based on sincere cooperation and mutual trust. The OUC has already incorporated “Brilliant Life: A Lifelong Learning Plan for Women” into its 13th Five-Year plan for which the university will be committed to and positively explore a new model and mechanism and build the plan into a high-quality, high-level project. Liu Chen said that he hopes “Brilliant Life: A Lifelong Learning Plan for Women” can take advantage of Internet Plus technology to accumulate experience, set up an exemplary model for the construction of a lifelong education system and learning-oriented society in China, and create a path of success through education for women in China.

Wang Qifu, director of the OUC School of Vocational Education and Training, gave a report on the status of the “Women's Learning Bar”, an online platform that supports the project, including its development and progress in terms of course resources and operational systems over the past year. At present, the number of learners registered on the platform exceeds 68,000 and the platform provides a total of 186 audio-visual, text, and image-based, representing a total of 393 teaching hours. The tasks of the pilot project have been successfully fulfilled in terms of course teaching hours and registered learners. A joint construction and sharing mechanism for course resources has taken shape between the All-China Women’s Federation and the OUC headquarters, and local women’s federations and the OUC branch schools. For the next phase, the project will adhere to its user-centric principles in order to innovate the working mechanism and place more emphasis on the development of training programmes with characteristics and features such as training for instructors for women and family health, family service and management, and health management.

During the meeting, representatives from seven local women’s federations and open universities from the first pilot group shared their respective achievements over the past year and exchanged learning experiences. The cities included Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Chengdu, and Shenzhen.

The second batch of pilot cities are Shijiazhuang in Hebei, Hohhot in Inner Mongolia, Nanjing in Jiangsu, Zhengzhou in Henan, Wuhan in Hubei, Guangzhou in Guangdong, Lanzhou in Gansu, Fushun in Liaoning, Qingdao in Shandong, and Mianyang in Sichuan. This plan will further strengthen work in pilot cities and integrate online learning with offline learning in physical schools, place more emphasis on content development for the “Women’s Learning Bar,” and continuously expand the space for women’s learning.

On 26th September 2016, the “Brilliant Life: A Lifelong Learning Plan for Women” project was initiated by the All-China Women’s Federation and officially launched by the publicity department of the All-China Women’s Federation in joint cooperation with the OUC in order to comprehensively implement the spirit of the CPC central committee and promote success through education. A press conference was also held in Bejing. “Brilliant Life: A Lifelong Learning Plan for Women” aims to provide learning services for women through distance education and improve the scientific and cultural literacy of women in China.

By Liu Xin, www.china.org.cn