| In
2000, the Modern Distance Education
Program sponsored by the Ministry of Education started
its first poverty-relief project called "Training
Program for Woman Teachers of Tomorrow." In one year,
more than 1,000 primary school woman teachers from poverty-stricken
counties in Guanxi, Yunnan, Gansu, Sichuan and Shaanxi
received 20 days of training in batches. They learned
computer operation, basic knowledge about the Internet
and learned how to receive digital broadcasting programs.
This aims to arm teachers in remote, poor areas of the
country with information technology so that they may become
better teachers and provide better education to their
pupils. Modern distance education has the characteristics
of wide coverage and speedy dissemination. It can help
remote, frontier areas overcome their weakness in education
caused by geographical location.
In
the past 50 years, China's distance education experienced
several different stages of development: correspondence
education, radio broadcast education, and modern distance
education based on IT and Internet technology.
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