Week 7- Task 1.

China: Its Distance Higher-Education System.

http://www1.worldbank.org/disted/Technology/broadcast/tv-02.html

After taking a look at the above link, I learn't a lot about distance learning in china, and how it has changed the way their higher-education system works, it was enlightening to find out about other types of universities and that there is more ways to learn than the standard face-to-face lectures and seminar set up which is mostly used.

China was the first country to use radio and television for higher education. It was in 1960, just after TV broadcasting had developed in China that the first Television Universities (also known as TVUs) were formed, this seemed to be due to the demand for adult education all across the country. The first were formed in Beijing.
In 1960-66 8,000 students graduated from Beijing and some what over 50,000 completed single courses.
The however was an interruption to this growing rate of students, during the 'Civil Revolution' (1966-76)
A major advantage with the TVUs is the fact they need far fewer funds than a normal university and can train a lot more people in a shorter space of time. This is the main reason for funding from the state councils, especially for the radio and television University in 1978 also in Beijing. (RTVU)
In October 1986 TVU teaching programmes were transmitted via a satellite everyday from 4:50pm to 11:00pm.
CRTVUs a ran at 5 levels:

• Highest level- is under the leadership the state.
• Second level- under the provincial government.
• Third level- under the profectuarl and civic government
  
• Fourth level- Under the district and county education bureaux
  
• Lowest level- Directly with TVU Students.

They over 150 courses in a variety of subjects from mathematics,physics, chemistry, civil engineering, finance, journalism and Chinese language and literature.
TVUs are multimedia based and use radio, television and printed material, along with this audio and video cassettes if there was not a lot of time, or it needed to be made up. Every year 1 million visual copies of teaching materials are produced and sent out. This is obviously a huge amount.
There is still opportunities for face-to-face meetings, generally when students want to ask questions directly and insure an immediate response.
The students these universities want are 'In service adults', secondary school graduates and young school leavers, there is also students known as 'freeviewers and listeners', these are students who take part with out the acknowledgment of the universities, but have to pay to take the final exams to get some sort of qualification. Where as all other students do not have tuition fees.
Like most universities full time students have to graduate within 2-3 years, part time students are allowed 3-6 years and those who take part in their spare time, have up to ten years to gain the credits they need to graduate.
There are examinations at the end of ever term to check up on students progress.
TVU systems budget comes from a variety of sources, such as state education commission.

These universities have helped in prove China's higher-education system a huge amount, and increased the amount of people with qualifications. This has then gone on to help the economy and social development if China. Obviously the amount of people in China is much more than the UK, so I don't know how much of a difference this system would make over here, I know there are some places available that do distance learning, such as the OpenUniversity, but the advertising is so small that not that many people will know about them.
I think these types of Universities and courses should be much more publicized than what they are, I didn't really know much about them before reading the article on the website. The flexibility of the studying, the wide range of courses, the price compared most universities are all things that I think make it appealing. I think there a great Idea for people who want to do something else whilst studying or have decided in a carrier change and want to study again,
but have to work at the same time.

However there may be some down falls to distance learning, some where mention on the website. Such as limited transmission times and delayed distribution. Along with this the information they are being taught could be very biased and there is also the problem with not having little or any contact with other students through out the educational experience. Can this work? Do you think we need to interact with each other? Hear each others thoughts etc.