On May 18, a symposium on the publication and launch ceremony for Archival Documents on Education in the Qing Dynasty (Series II, 30 volumes), a project under the National Key Publication Programs during the “14th Five-Year Plan” and a major project supported by the National Fund for the Collation and Publication of Ancient Chinese Books, was held at OUC. At the event, a full set of the series was presented to the OUC Library. This event was co-hosted by Modern Education Press and OUC, and organized by OUC’s College of Liberal Arts, Journalism and Communication and the National Research Base for Culture and Tourism. Lu Guangzhi, Deputy Secretary of the CPC OUC Committee, attended the event. 

Wang Meng, renowned artist and former Minister of Culture, spoke highly of the value of the series, describing it as a major event for China’s cultural life, publication sector, and education undertakings. Experts and scholars attending the meeting discussed the significance of publishing this archival collection and the role of education in the national governance system of the Qing Dynasty. They also examined the evolution of ancient Chinese educational thought and institutions, and affirmed the publishing and academic value of Archival Documents on Education in the Qing Dynasty.

Archival Documents on Education in the Qing Dynasty (Series II) is edited by Professor Bu Jian, a renowned scholar of literature and history and a Distinguished Professor at OUC, with contributions from scholars at OUC and a number of other institutions, and is published by Modern Education Press. The series bring together nearly 4,000 memorials to the throne submitted by provincial education commissioners in the Qing Dynasty from the First Historical Archives of China, supplemented by more than 3,000 related memorials held by the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Covering almost 500 education commissioners from the reign of Emperor Yongzheng to that of Emperor Daoguang, it forms a relatively complete corpus of archival documents on the provincial education administration in the Qing Dynasty.