ICT for Rural Education in China: Case Studies

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Topic 3：Problems Faced

ICT is playing an increasingly important role in supporting China’s rural educational development. In order to realize the sustainable development of rural education and receive sustained focus, we believe that at least the following three pressing issues need to be solved.

A. Integration of Quality Resources

From a national perspective, all three programmes target distance education for China's farmers. There is a significant amount of redundancy in the construction of distance education resources, resource transmission and teaching interaction. An overall plan that coordinates the three projects is lacking, and much infrastructure is constructed through repeated bidding. Existing resources are not put to full use, and resource integration and sharing are inadequate. The OUC is China’s largest distance education system, and it boasts networks, teaching resource construction, teaching staff, and teaching models that are specialized and advanced. Rural distance education projects should be implemented in conjunction with existing high-quality distance education systems. The implementing bodies may be different, but they can make full use of existing resources for resource construction, resource transmission and teaching interaction systems. By complementing each other's strengths, programmes can improve the effectiveness of rural distance education, achieve cheaper, faster, and better results in improving the cultural level of the rural population, and promote rural economic development.

In retrospect, China's ICT-supported rural education is lacking in quality resource integration. Overall planning and deployment is needed to energetically promote the modernization of rural education while making full use of existing nationwide distance networks and educational resources to reduce low-level redundant construction of educational resources and redundant investment in infrastructure.

B. Utilization of Facilities and Resources

A large amount of ICT equipment, facilities (including satellite and Internet) and resources have been developed thanks to China's investment in rural education, but there are two issues that must be kept in mind at all times. One is adaptive planning of ICT adoption, and the other is the utilization rate of ICT facilities and resources.

There is great variation in economic conditions, existing infrastructure and the educational level of farmers between coastal provinces and western provinces, and even among rural areas in different regions of the same province. Consideration should be given to regional differences when building ICT infrastructure. The overall plan should be scientifically developed instead of blindly pursuing the most advanced technology. Consider “Distance Education Programme for Rural Party Cadres” for example. Each trial province drafted its overall plan for ICT infrastructure construction based on actual local circumstances. Guangdong Province, in line with its circumstances, mainly conducts Internet-based training and works with China Telecom to deploy the distance education network for rural Party cadres province-wide. In Hubei and Guizhou provinces, training is conducted by integrating satellite TV and the Internet, and infrastructure for corresponding receiving stations is constructed. Receiving stations in different regions may have different infrastructure.

The rational planning and utilization of facilities and resources is a key problem affecting the cost of ICT application, and it is also a major problem affecting the sustainable development of rural education. As seen from the three programmes in this study, several factors have a bearing on cost effectiveness, which can be improved by increasing the utilization rate of infrastructure and educational resources. The first is policy; effective policies can encourage the rural population to use facilities and resources. The second is the strength of organization and implementation; close cooperation among management departments at all levels is needed, and management staff at relevant local educational institutions should provide better services. The third is the information literacy of the rural population; there needs to be focused training to develop the farmers’ awareness and ability to utilize existing ICT infrastructure. Fourth, existing resources must be integrated to the extent possible.

C. Establishment of a Lifelong Learning System

Both degree education and skill training are part of farmers’ learning and development. The three programmes have not yet systematically analyzed how to use ICT to establish a lifelong learning system and capacity building system that promote the continuous development of individual farmers and local institutions.

A lifelong learning system especially needs to track the learning progress of programme participants to record their learning outcomes into their personal lifelong learning profiles. Moreover, a corresponding accreditation system for learning achievements should be set up to ensure that farmers' learning achievements are recognized by the public and their enthusiasm for lifelong learning is maintained. The rating certificate system should be improved and an appropriate training system should be set up to support farmers' continuous learning. The rating certificate system should be integrated with the existing national systems of adult education, higher education and vocation education to ensure that the farmers' learning achievements are widely recognized by society. The establishment of a lifelong learning system for farmers is yet another important aspect in ensuring the sustainable development of rural education.

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