On June 25, 2012, a 13-member delegation headed by Nils Usakovs, mayor of Riga, visited the Open University of China (OUC). Vice President Zhang Shaogang met with the delegation along with Director Yang Yongbo of the Department of International Cooperation and Exchange, Vice Director Li Fujia of the ChineseLanguageCenter, Vice Director Wang Ying of the Research Institute of Open and Distance Education and other OUC colleagues.
The 7th International Conference and Workshops on Technology and Chinese Language Teaching in the 21st Century (TCLT7) was held May 25-27, 2012, at theHawaii Imin International Conference Center at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa in Honolulu, Hawaii. The OUC Chinese Language Center attended the conference and presented a paper entitled "A Framework for Distance Chinese Education in the Cloud and Mobile Era", introducing the development philosophy and research achievements of the "MyEChinese Distance Chinese
From May 13 to May 16, a delegation led by OUC Vice President Zhang Shaogang visited Ecuador at the invitation of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Ecuador. The delegation held talks with representatives from the Ecuador government and was briefed on the status of open and distance education in Ecuador.
On May 21, the inauguration ceremony for the Cloud Computing Application and E-Learning Laboratory co-established by the Open University of China (OUC) and Cisco Systems (China) was held at the OUC Wukesong Distance Education Building. In attendance were OUC President Yang Zhijian and Mr. Wim Elfrink, Cisco Systems Chief Globalisation Officer and Executive Vice President of Emerging Solutions, as well as other leading personnel from both organizations.
At Shenzhen Radio and TV University's (Shenzhen RTVU) graduation ceremony held on May 20, 2012, 78–year-old Wu Liangmei received his certificate of graduation and made his college dreams come true.
Wu Liangmei is the oldest student ever to graduate from Shenzhen RTVU and the oldest undergraduate student in the city of Shenzhen. In 2005,
To support and promote the construction of digital learning resources, create new institutional mechanisms, and promote the joint construction and sharing of quality educational resources, the Open University of China (OUC) recently established the Digital Learning Resource Centre (hereinafter referred to as the Centre). The Centre will use cloud technology to build a digital learning resource bank and develop web-based learning platforms for various industries.
On April 27, classes began at "Prosperity Night School", a school jointly established by Guangxi Radio and TV University (Guangxi RTVU) and Jintang Village in Daxin County.
Jintang Village is a poor village in the autonomous region along the China-Vietnam border. Recently, a communist official from Guangxi RTVU was assigned to Jintang to serve as the first secretary of the village party committee. Guangxi RTVU and Jintang Village used this opportunity to establish a new form of poverty relief, leveraging Guangxi RTVU's expertise in distance education to establish "Prosperity Night School". By providing technical training and information on agriculture and raising livestock, the school seeks to eliminate poverty through education, address the villagers' longstanding lack of agricultural know-how and help the village progress towards prosperity.
On the eve of the inauguration of the school, Guangxi RTVU delivered 10 sets of computers and desks to the school and sent technicians to install the computers and connect them to the Internet. The school will offer courses appropriate to the needs of the local economy and will teach villagers to use appropriate policies and technologies through diverse methods such as distance teaching, book rooms and inviting agricultural experts for on-site lectures. Villagers can make use of their spare time in the evenings to study without neglecting farm work.
There are plans to expand "Prosperity Night School" to cover 37 poor villages in the county within two years, and gradually expand further to all townships and villages.
By Guangxi RTVU
On the morning of April 19, the 2011 "Hand in Hand—A Reading Movement among Rural Youth" Award Ceremony and Launch Ceremony for 2012 was held at the Open University of China (OUC). 44 provincial radio and TV universities around the country participated in the meeting via video conferencing or software networking. The "Hand in Hand" movement was initiated by the Library Association of China and the Open University of China to promote reading among youths in rural areas. Since the launch of the movement