Challenges and Countermeasures of Developing Senior Education in Universities in the Context of Actively Responding to Population Ageing
Fulfilling the diversified and personalized education needs of the elderly becomes one of the crucial measures of the national strategy for actively responding to population ageing.In this regard,giving full play to the role of colleges and universities is an important way to improve senior education supply and develop high-quality elderly education.Although universities in China started relatively late in developing senior education,some institutional innovations have been made,including the Elder Academy Schemes,National Senior University,Lifelong Education Credit Bank Certification,and Senior Training Institute.Based on these practices,four forms of education for the elderly have been developed:diploma,auditor,university experience,and non-degree course models.These forms are respectively employment-oriented,socially-oriented or leisure-oriented,respectively.Senior education in China is confronted with many challenges:its development concept needs to be improved;its development mechanisms need to be improved further;the investment in senior education needs to be increased;the geographical distribution of colleges and universities is uneven.Drawing on the existing experience and in view of the challenges faced by senior education in China,we can expand the connotation of education for the elderly,establish and improve its development guarantee mechanisms,launch age-friendly college pilots,and promote colleges and universities to share their online courses to better play their roles in developing elderly education.