A meeting was held in Kashgar, Xinjiang on Aug. 25 to promote the Xinjiang pilot project under the “Boosting MOOCs in Western China” (BMWC) Plan (Phase II). Vice Minister of Education Wu Yan and Vice Chairman of the CPC Committee of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Kaiser Abdukerim attended the meeting and delivered speeches.

The meeting recalled the decisions made at the 20th CPC National Congress and the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee on pushing the development of the western region to a new level. It reviewed a major document adopted by the Meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on Aug. 23, which underlined the importance of the development of the western region as a strategic policy for improving sustainable development in the region and its overall strength. It was noted that the BMWC Plan (Phase II) was part of the MOE’s initiative to invigorate higher education in the western region.

The meeting stressed that the Plan is an important measure for ensuring educational equity. It was reported that cooperation in higher education between China’s East and West has raised the quality of education for millions of college students, helped thousands of teachers enhance their professional competence, and improved the overall strength of hundreds of universities in the western region. The meeting highlighted the importance of overall planning and coordination in the implementation of the Plan. It also underscored the need to push forward digitalization in education as a means of enhancing teacher capacity and improving talent cultivation.

The meeting said that the second phase of the Plan should focus on supporting strong, unique, and newly-established disciplines at various universities in the region. It set forth major focus areas for the new stage: AI-empowered institutional innovation, integrated and systematic resource allocation, and expansion of MOOCs based on the strategic demands of universities in the region.

It was reported that, since its launch in 2013, the BMWC Plan has provided 207,000 online courses and facilitated 9.36 million teaching activities jointly organized by universities in the eastern and western regions, benefitting 590 million students and nearly two million teachers.

Meeting attendees included representatives of local education authorities and universities participating in the Xinjiang pilot project.