Millions to benefit from online vocational training

Several ministry-level departments, including those responsible for human resources and social security, education, and national development and reform, have responded recently to issues of public concern.

Digital platforms to provide skills training

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security has launched a 100-day free online vocational training program to promote employment and alleviate poverty amid the novel coronavirus pneumonia pandemic.

The move is an important part of the country's three-year campaign to improve vocational skills, the ministry said on Wednesday.

From late March to the end of June, more than 50 online platforms will be selected to provide free vocational skills training for over 5 million people, with digital training resources covering over 100 types of jobs.

People from rural and urban areas, including migrant workers, the unemployed and college graduates, can apply for the training, it said.

Subsidies will be provided to enterprises participating in the program and to trainees, especially those in financial difficulty.

Universities, colleges offer English classes online

China's universities and colleges will offer a number of high-quality courses in English to global students via an international online teaching platform.

The international platform is still under construction, and two teaching websites－www.icourse.cn and https://next.xuetangx.com/－are the first to be included in the program, Wu Yan, a higher education official from the Ministry of Education, told a video conference held in Beijing on Friday.

The ministry will set up a committee to promote the construction of the platform and curricula and also establish an expert team to guide the operation and management of the platform, Wu said.

"For more than 40 years of reform and opening-up, China has been learning a lot from the world in developing its higher education," Wu said. "Now, we want to actively contribute to the world's higher education through massive online teaching and learning."

The construction of the platform comes at a time when the novel coronavirus pneumonia pandemic has forced the suspension of classes in many countries and regions.

Cities to ease permanent residency requirements

China will ease permanent residency requirements in many large cities as part of its urbanization push, the National Development and Reform Commission said on Thursday.

Restrictions on permanent residence permits should be scrapped in cities with populations between 1 million and 3 million, according to an NDRC document outlining key urbanization tasks this year.

For cities with populations of 3 million to 5 million, the qualifications for such permits should be "fully relaxed", and restrictions on certain key groups of people getting such permits should be removed, the document said.

The country has gradually abolished permanent residency restrictions in small and medium-sized cities and towns with populations below 1 million.

The NDRC document also demanded cities with populations above 5 million improve their policies and drastically expand the scale of permanent residency.

Basic public services should be guaranteed for unregistered permanent residents in cities, with an increased supply of education resources in cities where there are a sizable number of children of migrant workers, according to the document.

The coverage of government-supported rental homes and housing provident funds should be expanded to benefit more unregistered permanent residents, it said.

China set a target of adding 100 million registered permanent urban residents from 2016 to 2020.

By the end of 2018, registered permanent urban residents comprised 43.37 percent of the country's population, up 1.02 percentage points from a year earlier, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

Xinhua contributed to the story.