Press room

During their visit, the delegation, led by the Vice-President of the NEEA, Jiagan Dai, are to look at a number of initiatives, including working on the mutual recognition of courses and qualifications, making progress with the joint creation of teaching materials and methods for monitoring learning processes, collaborating in promoting the introduction of information and communication technologies (ICT) to support training and working to create and promote self-taught language courses, etc.

The NEEA is the Chinese Ministry of Education's body in charge of the assessment system for access to university education. Relations with the UOC began two years ago, when the President of the NEEA, Zhao Lianghong, proposed the possibility of creating an e-learning model. A pilot test was set in motion to monitor a hundred and fifty Chinese students, where the UOC worked to translate and adapt its Virtual Campus for the Chinese, adapting teaching materials and offering specific training for the Chinese professors.

The success of this pilot project and the experience gained by the UOC and the NEEA led to the signing of a cooperation agreement between the two institutions in October 2004. This agreement foresees the establishment of a stable framework for cooperation to ensure continued relations through annual meetings, both in China and Catalonia, to monitor the agreement and approve the ongoing project.

This is the UOC's third visit from an NEEA delegation. In short, this project, which forms part of the first phase of a global European Commission programme aimed at using e-learning knowledge in Europe, aims to see the NEEA pass progressively from being a traditional distance education institution to being an e-learning one. The role of the UOC in this project is to offer advice to this body as they look to incorporate ICT.