CHINA’S ONLINE EDUCATION: Rhetoric and Realities

Although little is currently known of distance education in China,especially in Western educational circles, there is a long-standing well-established instructional television system of distance education that has flour-ished in China since the 1960s (Howells, 1989). In fact, one of the world’s largest education systems is the Dianda system in China, a combined radio-television university system capable of enrolling upwards of 100,000 learners (Keegan, 1994). With the advent of online education, however, China must face a brave new world of innovation. This chapter examines the political rhetoric surrounding the allocation of funds and energies to online learning, considers the critical components of that rhetoric, and discusses the impacts on the way China adopts the new online learning technologies. As you read this chapter, please reflect upon the following questions: • How does the political rhetoric match or mismatch the reality of online education in China? • How does the regional economical divide impact the implementation o