As one of the flagship events of the 2026 China-ASEAN Education Exchange Week, the international forum themed "Empowering Lifelong Learning Through Digital Intelligence – Building a New Ecosystem for Human Lifelong Learning" was held on July 30 in Gui’an New Area, Guizhou Province. This marks the first special forum focusing on lifelong education since the launch of the Exchange Week. Government representatives, experts and scholars from China, ASEAN member states and Australia gathered to conduct in-depth discussions on leveraging digital intelligence technologies to advance lifelong education.

During the forum, the China-ASEAN Alliance for Lifelong Education Cooperation was officially launched. As China’s first regular cooperation platform dedicated to lifelong education exchanges with ASEAN, the alliance was voluntarily co-initiated by universities, institutions and organizations engaged in lifelong education across China, ASEAN nations and other countries. Guizhou Open University serves as the alliance’s secretariat. The alliance aims to build a bridge for cross-border educational collaboration. Moving forward, it will advance pragmatic cooperation and in-depth integration in lifelong education among participating countries around four core pillars: mutual reference of teaching models, sharing of teaching resources, joint formulation of teaching standards, and collaborative research on educational theories.

ASEAN officials in attendance shared local practices for developing lifelong education based on their national educational landscapes and voiced aspirations to deepen multilateral collaboration. Sok Soka, Deputy Director-General of the Higher Education Administration Department at Cambodia’s Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, presented Cambodia’s progress in digital government construction and digital citizen cultivation. He stressed that improving education quality cannot rely solely on technological empowerment; parallel progress in pedagogical innovation and institutional reform within educational institutions is indispensable. He also pledged Cambodia’s full support and active participation in all initiatives of the China-ASEAN Alliance for Lifelong Education Cooperation.

Linghu Caitao, Party Secretary of Guizhou Open University, delivered a keynote speech titled "Digital Intelligence Cultivates Fertile Ground for Lifelong Learning; Open Education Connects Mountains and Seas as One" at the forum, systematically reviewing the university’s 47-year educational journey. Founded in 1979 as Guizhou Radio and TV University, the institution originally delivered rural education using 14-inch black-and-white televisions and mimeographed lecture scripts. Today, powered by digital intelligence technologies including big data, artificial intelligence and blockchain, the university has broken geographical barriers and interconnected educational resources across vast regions, achieving transformative leapfrog development.

Linghu Caitao elaborated on the university’s innovative practices and fruitful outcomes in lifelong education across four dimensions: scaled digital upgrading, digital credential recognition, digital technologies empowering rural development, and international outreach of digital education. In terms of operational layout, the university has established an integrated five-tier education network covering provincial, municipal, county, township and village levels. It runs 408 community and rural learning hubs across Guizhou and has built more than 10,000 digital course resource libraries to precisely meet diverse learning demands of all social groups. For its credential recognition system, Guizhou Provincial Lifelong Education Credit Bank adopts distributed ledger technology to create traceable, tamper-proof learning records for learners. It has also established a credit conversion channel linking academic education, vocational skills training, community learning and senior citizen education.

Linghu Caitao highlighted the university’s remarkable achievements in industry-education integration, rural poverty alleviation and international collaboration. Over the past two years, the university has provided e-commerce skills training to over 10,000 participants and helped farmers launch and operate more than 300 self-media accounts. The campus volunteer group "Meimei Guizhou Student & Teacher Rural Support Team", consisting of nearly 300 faculty and students, has dedicated itself to rural assistance and helped local farmers sell agricultural products worth over 5 million RMB. Meanwhile, the university actively pursues international education engagement: its trilingual (Chinese-English-Thai) premium course Agricultural E-Commerce has been officially adopted by the China-Thailand Education Alliance; an overseas learning center has been established in Laos; the institutional standard Level 4 Internet Marketer drafted by the university has obtained official national certification from Laos. The university continues to run online specialized classes combining "Chinese Language + E-commerce Skills", delivering systematic vocational training to more than 700 ASEAN learners, and has opened 12 multilingual courses featuring intangible cultural heritage and rural revitalization for global open access.

At the forum, Luo Yong, Deputy Party Secretary and President of Guizhou Open University, read out the China-ASEAN Consensus on Lifelong Education Cooperation. The consensus calls on all participating countries to seize educational development opportunities in the digital intelligence era, jointly build an inclusive, universally accessible lifelong education system, deepen cross-border educational exchange, mutual learning and win-win integration, and collectively foster an open, inclusive and synergistic new ecosystem for human lifelong learning.