Shanghai opens college focused on elderly care services

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By the end of 2015, Shanghai had 4.36 million people aged over 60 years old, making it the largest aging population in China, and the supply of elderly care services for them in the city has been falling short of demand in recent years.

CNS Photo

Co-established by Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau and Shanghai Open University, the Shanghai Civil Affairs College has been newly inaugurated, with its first class of 299 students seeking junior college diplomas in professional elderly care and management, according to reports.

CNS Photo

A variety of courses are offered at the new college, including nutrition, elderly physiology and disease prevention, as well as geriatric sociology and psychology, according to Yuan Wen, president of Shanghai Open University.

Students will also learn other basic knowledge and skills for taking care of the elderly during their daily lives, especially emergency rescue.

With a year-on-year increase of 5.3 percent, it’s estimated that the number of elderly living in Shanghai will reach 5.7 million by 2020, according to an earlier statistic released by the local authority.

CCTV Photo

However, there are only 50,000 current nurses staffed in Shanghai, according to China News, and some of whom come from a relatively poor educational background. Facing the challenge of an ageing society, the government plans not only increase the number of nurses to 78,000 by 2020, but also provide a better quality of elderly care service.

A specialized college diploma in elderly care and management is said to be the first project of its kind from both the local Civil Affairs Bureau and the city’s Open University. The aim is to provide a larger platform for long-term civil service in Shanghai in the near future.

A similar change in the structure of society has also happened in Japan and the EU, where the governments are establishing relevant systems to care for the increasing elderly population in better and healthier ways.