Shanghai Municipal Education Commission announced the 2020 list of Shanghai First-class Undergraduate Higher Education Institution Courses last week, among which were Tongji University's 29 undergraduate courses including 3 online courses, 9 offline courses, 5 online and offline integrated courses, 9 virtual simulation experiment courses, 2 social practice courses and 1 demonstration course which is taught in English.

The 2 online and offline integrated courses from Tongji University School of Medicine are: "Musculoskeletal & Rheumatology" headed by CHENG Liming, "Epidemiology" headed by ZHANG Lijuan.

A total of 367 courses were selected as 2020 Shanghai First-class Undergraduate HEI courses by Shanghai Municipal Education Commission. Among them, there are 27 high-quality online courses, 112 offline courses, 101 online and offline blended courses, 85 virtual simulation experiment courses, 21 social practice courses and 21 demonstration courses which are delivered in English.

On November 30, 2020, the Ministry of Education issued the First Batch of National First-class Undergraduate HEI Courses and 54 courses of Tongji University were on the list.

Tongji University has been committed to teaching quality improvement by transferring teaching reform results to "course refinement" in accordance with the initiatives proposed by the National Working Conference on Undergraduate Education for the New Era. Low-quality courses were gradually replaced by courses of excellence through reforming the type and diversity of teaching content and curriculum. According to the requirements of the Ministry of Education for the improvement of first-class undergraduate courses, the Freshmen's College has formulated the "2020-2022 Plan for Building the First-class Undergraduate Course System of Tongji University" based upon talent cultivation goal of Tongji University. The plan aims at establishing a total of 700 first-class undergraduate courses step by step in 3 years to achieve a unique first-class undergraduate course system with Tongji characteristics.