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August 18, 2018

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How learning changes the lives of the elderly

LIU Lixia walks into the classroom in her dancing gear and proceeds to warm up in front of the mirror. She dances every week and enjoys her weekly university-style life.

Nothing unusual there, except that the “university” Liu attends is Harbin Senior Citizen School. Established in 1984, it is one of China’s first educational establishments aimed solely at senior citizens.

More than 200,000 students have graduated from it over the past 30 years. All those enrolled here are over 50 years old and have had their lives enriched through attending the school.

Following her musical accompaniment, Liu spins and jumps gracefully to the beat. It is difficult to imagine that she is over 50 years old.

“It has been more than three years since I first came to this class. Not only did dancing give me a new lease of life, but I also became more cheerful and confident,” she says.

Liu’s dance teacher Li Yongxia has taught this class for more than 10 years, with the average age of her students being over 60 years old.

“When they first came here, they were in a bad state and felt lost. Dancing helped change their lives from the inside out,” she says.

Under Li’s leadership, the students formed a dance team, and have won awards in several competitions.

“There is a unique charm here that makes me stick to dancing. This school has become my second home,” says Liu.

The “unique charm” Liu mentioned is actually the value these elder citizens found in themselves.

Wang Jingyun, 68, and several hundred other students over 60 years old formed a volunteer group, and often go to nursing homes to perform.

“We are actually old people, but participating in dance enhances our physical and mental state. We also hope to continue to create value for society,” Wang says.

Many of today’s senior citizens in China were obliged to spend the early part of their lives working, and didn’t have time to cultivate their hobbies. After retirement, many had a strong desire to learn new things and acquire more knowledge. For many, enrolling at a school like this is a way of doing just that.

Zhang Lihua, principal of Harbin Senior Citizen School, says on the first day of registration for this spring semester, nearly 200 classes were filled up within just five minutes, with around 40,000 students currently enrolled at the school.

Yet even these numbers are dwarfed by the amount of senior citizens in Harbin. According to Liu Shifa, deputy mayor of Harbin, by the end of 2017, the number of people over 60 years old in the city reached 1.97 million, accounting for 20.7 percent of its total population.

While there are more than 50 types of senior education institutions in Harbin, the enrollment rate is just 3 percent, meaning there remains a considerable difference between the supply and demand of education resources.

To give more elderly people the opportunity of entering the classroom, the city administrators are relying on Harbin Senior Citizen School to integrate 55 senior education institutions in the area and establish branch campuses to expand the supply of resources for senior education.

The boom in elderly learning comes as China is increasingly experiencing problems associated with an aging population. By the end of 2017, there were 241 million people aged 60 and above in China, accounting for 17.3 percent of the total population.

In 2016, the General Office of the State Council issued the Elderly Education Development Plan (2016-2020), designed to meet the learning needs of elderly people.




 

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