For the first time in its 118-year history, all courses at BNU’s 30 schools and faculties are delivered online. A total of 4,036 courses have been planned for this semester, involving tens of thousands of students, with 3,238 courses being offered online by 1,151 faculty. The campus is vacant, yet online classrooms are full. On February 24, Beijing Normal University (BNU) started its new semester with online national flag-raising ceremony. By February 2, 2020, 22 major online curriculum platforms opened 24,000 online courses for higher education institutions to choose from, including 1,291 national excellence courses and 401 national virtual simulation experimental courses, covering 12 undergraduate programs and 18 tertiary vocational programs (Wang 2020). Institutions of higher education systems promptly reacted to these measures. The Ministry urges universities to conduct multi-dimensional learning evaluation, and to appropriately credit student online achievements. It demands that teacher workload in delivering online courses should be recognized as equivalent to teacher workload in delivering face-to-face courses it also encourages students towards online self-directed learning. Ministry of Education further requires that new online courses are of the same quality as previously delivered face-to-face courses.
The Guidance requires national and local governments to encourage colleges and universities, together with the rest of the society, to participate in joint implementation of online education. On February 5, 2020, the initiative was followed up by ‘Guidance on the Organization and Management of Online Teaching in the Higher Education Institutions During Epidemic Prevention and Control Period’ (Ministry of Education 2020). To provide flexible online learning to over 270 million students, Ministry of Education has launched an initiative entitled ‘Disrupted classes, undisrupted learning’. Students are not allowed to return to campuses without approval. Chinese universities and colleges have postponed the beginning of spring semester. Most face-to-face activities, including teaching, have been banned.
Chinese government has imposed strict measures to contain the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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