Week 7: China: Its Distance Higher Education System

This post is about China's higher education through distance learning. These are a few things that i found from the article by Zhao Yuhui:

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=60274016268&h=u_f6s&u=pcjWf

• Media is used for distance learning within China.
• It was one of the first countries to use radio and tv for higher education.
• The first TVU (television university) was set up in Beijing.
• 1960-1966 8,000 people graduated from the Beijing TVU.
• 50,000 graduated with single studies through teaching programmes, these students were needed for development in industrial and agricultural industries.
• this however was interrupted by the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).
• After this revolution, the Socialist Modernization Project was introduced which included the modernization of industry, agriculture, national defence and science and technology, so these TVU's were needed to educate the masses quickly and efficiently.
• At this stage China's primary and secondary education was at a higher level than most developing countries.
• Although enrollment into higher education was limited, in 1975 it was less than 2 percent of the populous.
• This could of been put down to a persons geographical location, in other words, they may be to rural for distance learning to affect their lives.
• In 1978 CRTVU's (Central Radio and Television Universities) were founded, this was due to the fact they needed to teach mass amounts of people rapidly.
• PTVU's (Provincial Radio and Television Universities) were also founded in order to teach the people of more rural areas, Provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions.
• These CRTVU's and PTVU's had specific and more general courses
• 1,291,833 enrolled but only 590,941 graduated.
• In 1981 there was the introduction of the sixth five year plan. "There will be considerable expansion of higher education through radio, television, correspondence and eveing courses. students taking these courses will number 1.5 million by 1985".
• In 1986, these courses began to be trabsmitted by satellite every night at 4.50pm till 11pm.

• There are five levels of distance learning within China:

1. CRTVU highest level, direct leadership of the state education commission
2. PTVU second level ran by the provincial governments
3. Branch schools third level
4. Work stations fourth level - these are to do with industries.
5. Teaching and Learning classes are the last level.

• TVU- multi-media with television, radio and printed materials.
• Use of lecturers as presenters to ensure a high standard of education is given.
• However, face to face is needed for both students and lecturers because presenters/lecturers cannot answer students questions directly or immediately and there is no immediate feed back for the presenters so that they can change their approach or change something on the course.
• The World Bank Project was introduced in order to create 85 study centers, these were for remote areas so that there could be equal resources for rural and more developed parts of the country.
• These courses are very independent and is on the students to do the learning.
• There was a Drop-out rate of 31 percent.
• The courses have to be more flexible and open so that the ones who have graduated can help the economically deprieved areas of the country.
• And vocational education needs to be improved.

These courses are a great way to educate a developing country, especially when the populatin of that counrty is around 1.29 billion, which is around a fifth of the worlds population. However, their needs to be improvemnets in the interactivity of the course because students cannot discuss their views with their peers and lecturers. So will this processs of distance learning ever be as good as conventional universities???