Distance Learning in China1

In line with the popularity of computer and communication technologies, the largest country in the world — China — has joined the era of the Internet. As one of the most important activities on the Internet, distance learning is widely developed by key universities in China. The advantage of distance learning compared to traditional education is its flexibility, timely distribution, scalability, and multi-modality of learning resources. Observing the development process and activities of distance learning from the perspective of one of the largest universities in China 2 , we summarize a few interesting issues in this paper. The traditional culture of the Chinese to allow children to receive good education is a common goal for many parents in China. However, for high-level education, the percentage of people that can receive a degree in China is lower than those in some Western countries 3. This is due partially to the large population of the country. Starting in 1998, the Ministry of Education of China investigated more than 260 million RMB to promote distance learning in four well-established universities, including Zhejiang University. The budget was to support the construction of advanced network infrastructure; the development of 200 high-quality distance learning courses; the implementation of a resource database to store course contents, references, exercises , and exams; and the development of a distance learning standard in China (including platform). When this paper was written, there were more than 68 large universities in China providing distance learning services to students. Ever since the investigation , distance learning in China has received high attention, not only from the 1.3 billion people but also from many Western countries. In the year 2000, there were about 22,500,000 Internet users in China. About 75% of these users were under the age of 30, especially students in universities, colleges , and high schools. Motivation of distance learning students is based on receiving a high-level degree, especially for those who lost the chance to receive an education. However, for students from the country , it is relatively more difficult to join distance learning due to the high cost of computers and the Internet. Another factor that discourages distance learning is less readiness for using computer and communication technology, especially for people above the age of 30. In contrast with using high-tech, some prefer self-guided study and TV-based broadcasting for learning. However , this drawback of not using computers is improved …