September 24-26, 2014 saw the convening of the Ninth Seminar of Bohai Sea Rim Community Education Cooperation Organization in the City of Dalian, Liaoning Province.
Cai Yan, Deputy Director of the Adult Training Division of the MOE Department of Vocational and Adult Education, attended the seminar. She indicated that China is now at a crucial stage in comprehensively building a moderately prosperous society, which means that continuing education is faced with a rare development opportunity.
On September 22, 2014, the Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of Hong Kong Pei Hua Education Foundation, Mr. Wang Mingang, visited The Open University of China (OUC). The Party Secretary of the OUC Li Ling, Vice President of the OUC Liu Chen, and relevant department heads held a discussion with Wang Mingang about the cooperation between Hong Kong Pei Hua Education Foundation and the OUC.
Recently, the preparation of “The Open University for Older Adults” implemented by the Open University of China (OUC) has made solid progress in promoting education for older adults, constructing an open university for older adults, investigating and analyzing demand, studying basic theory and real-time issues, implementing the construction of professional disciplines, developing non-degree projects, building platform course resources, and system construction.
On 2 September 2014, a teacher discussion and training meeting for the autumn semester of 2014 was held in Beijing Experimental School. The meeting summarized the implementation of teaching strategies from the spring semester of 2014, and outlined teaching objectives for the autumn semester of 2014 and current state of progress. Tutors, teaching staff, and tutoring directors of Beijing Experimental School attended the meeting.
During the celebration of the 30th annual Teachers’ Day, the Ministry of Education, in harmony with “Decision on Honoring Excellent Teachers and Excellent Educators in the Nation” (Department of Personnel, MOE, No. 3 [2014]), announced 1,798 "excellent" teachers and 200 "excellent" educators who had been selected to receive this national honor for 2014.
According to “MOE’s Decision about Approving 2014 Award Winning Projects of State-level Teaching Achievement” (No. 8, Teachers, 2014), two of the OUC’s teaching projects have won state-level awards. According to the terms set forth in the “Regulation on Teaching Achievement Awards” published by the State Council, a total of 1,320 projects have been approved in 2014 by the State Council to win state-level teaching achievement awards, among which five projects were evaluated as worthy of special awards for state-level teaching achievements, 148 were awarded first prizes, and 1,167 awarded second prizes.
On October 13, the 2014 Council Meeting of the Confucius Institute at Michigan State University was held at Henry Conference Center of Michigan State University. Via the video conferencing system, council members from China and America took part in the summit together to summarize the work completed in 2013 and 2014 and discuss their working plan for 2015.
On 24 September 2014, Beijing Educational Evaluation Institute visited the Open University of China (OUC) to conduct a survey. The survey aims to assess the development and construction situation since the establishment of the OUC was approved by the State; investigate if the current running mechanism can guarantee the overall operation of the OUC and meet the need for undergraduate teaching; and find out if there is an institutional guarantee for the OUC’s orientation.