On November 11, the 2025 Council Meeting of the East China Open University Alliance was held in Qingdao. The meeting brought together representatives from 11 member institutions, including the Open University of China, along with officials from the Qingdao Municipal Education Bureau and Culture and Tourism Bureau.
Under the theme “Collaboration and Shared Growth among Regional Open Universities in Building an Accessible Lifelong Education System,” participants discussed coordinated regional development and the establishment of a high-quality lifelong education framework, aiming to advance resource sharing, digital collaboration, and common standards.
In her address titled “Building an Open and Integrated Lifelong Education Ecosystem,” JSOU President Zhang Yingchun highlighted the need for open universities to transition from systematic development to ecosystem building. She shared JSOU’s practical experiences in four areas: strengthening its coordinating role in governance and resource integration; meeting diverse learning needs through a province-wide community education network and digital learning platforms; deepening digital and intelligent transformation in teaching and management; and innovating learning outcome recognition through the Jiangsu model of the credit bank system.
Looking ahead to the 15th Five-Year Plan period, she called for deeper regional collaboration in curriculum standards, high-quality resource sharing, and data interoperability, and encouraged the integration of AI across the educational process to jointly build an ecosystem that supports a strong educational system.
During the visit, President Zhang and the delegation also conducted a field survey on industry-education integration at Ocean University of China.
