| |
 |
E-university, another way out
|
NOT everyone is lucky enough to walk into a university campus through the narrow bridge of national college or graduate school entrance exams. Among the 280 million Chinese youth between 18-22, only 2.4 per cent are winners on the battlefield of the National College Entrance Exams who naturally enjoy the fruit of higher education. The rest may lose the chance once and for all.
But not necessarily true today. By the end of last July, 31 renowned Chinese universities had got approval from the Ministry of Education to recruit online students. Recently, People's University opened an online education site simultaneously in 14 regions nationwide. By registration at www.cmr.com.cn, passing certain exams and earning enough credits, you can get a degree from the university.
Presently, E-universities generally adopt two different measures in management. Qinghua and Beijing universities take care of the whole process while People's University only has control over enrolment and graduation, leaving course-learning and student-administration tasks to the website. However, all the three universities are very strict in terms of enrolment and graduation qualification.
Take Qinghua for example. For the first group of 260 students got enrolled in 1998, who are allowed a period of 2-4 years to learn the 15 compulsory courses, they have to pass the national degree-application exams in foreign languages and a comprehensive test in their major, complete and defend a thesis and publish an article in a key journal in their field before finally getting a master's degree. The certificates granted are acknowledged by the State and treated the same as traditional diplomas, only with “telnet education" marked out on it.
The tuition fee of E-universities directly relates to the credits earned, normally 80-100 yuan per credit. The undergraduate programme with People's University requires 160 credits for graduation, thus costing 4,000 yuan per year and fitting into the scale of those who stay on campus. Then, online students can choose to work at the same time, and the cost of boarding and transportation is saved.
As efforts in telnet education are just burgeoning, and universities themselves lack the fund to maintain to many high-tech facilities, E-universities still has a long way to go. Anyway, this online learning mode has promised prospects of quality education for many more who crave for higher education or further studies.
(Li Dan)
|
|
|
|
