The Department of Adult Education, the predecessor of the institute, was set up in 1985. At the initial stage, only night school and correspondence students were admitted. Ever since its foundation some ten years ago, the institute has trained a large succession of foreign language professionals for China, who have made outstanding contributions to domestic constructions as well as to foreign affairs.
Nowadays student enrollment is as large as 1,800. English, English Teaching and Japanese are the three principal specialties offered by the Institute, which embrace different layers of studies. In addition to the secondary specialized programme in Business, the institute has started the four-year undergraduate programme, the two-year undergraduate programme and the two-year college programme of applied courses which are orientated to the self-taught examination, with Business English, Secretary English and Tourism Management included in the curricula.
The institute adopts many flexible means to develop higher education for adults. Besides the full-time courses, the institute has opened up evening courses, weekend courses and short-term training courses of different languages, all of which enjoy great popularity among the youth and in-service trainees. Well-equipped teaching and learning facilities are available to students. The Adult Education Institute has blossomed into one of the most important bases for adult education of foreign languages in south west area of China.
The institute undertakes the responsibilities of training and assessment of self-taught examinations in the Sichuan province and the Chongqing municipality. It also supervises tests for thousands of examinees of BEC (Business English Certificate), JPT (Japanese Proficiency Test) and CYLE (Cambridge Young Learners English) each year.
The National Computer Rank Examination Centre in this Institute will also hold examinations twice a year and the computer application training classes all the year round.