Int. J. Educational Development, Vol. 15. No. 1, pp. 27-36.

1995
Elsevier ScienceLtd
Pergamon Printed in Great Britain
0738-0593/95$9.50 + .00
0738--0593(93)E0017-5

CHINA'S CHANGING POLICY AND PRACTICE IN TELEVISION

EDUCATION, 1978-1993

WEIXIANG MA* and DAVID H A W K R I D G E t

*Beijing Normal University, Beijing and tlnstitute of Educational Technology, The Open University

Abstract - - In the People's Republic in China, government policies are aimed at enabling
the country to achieve by the year 2050 the same standard of economic development as the
middle group of developed countries, such as Portugal and Greece, reached in 1990. Education
supported by television has been given an important role to play, but China's policy and
practice in television education has changed considerably since 1978. The remarkable growth
of the television universities, started in 1979 with a terrestrial broadcasting system, was aided
by a large World Bank loan. Reforms of the late 1980s in higher education led to a decline
in undergraduate numbers in these universities, but other reforms enabled them to serve new
groups, such as those requiring specialised vocational courses. Next, the government decided
to establish a satellite television system for education, to serve several purposes including
in-service training for primary and secondary school teachers, and "post-university" television
education for technicians, managers and professional staff. The outcomes of these changing
policies have been monitored and to some extent evaluated, raising questions about the future
of television education in China.

THE CONTEXT comparison with the developed countries, at

China is a country of 9.6 million square kilo-
metres. The 1990 census revealed a still-
growing population of 1160 million people,
distributed rather unevenly among and within
provinces and autonomous regions. In general,
the fertile provinces near the east coast are
much more heavily-populated than those to
tile west and north-west. About four-fifths of
the people are farmers and live in country areas,
some of them remote and mountainous.
The People's Republic was founded in 1949.
Starting from a very low base, the Republic's
economic development, as measured by GNP
per capita, has been very fast, but China is
still a developing country whose people have
low incomes by international standards. These
incomes are reflected in the very low levels of
expenditure on education, about U.S.$10 per
capita per annum during the 1980s. National
expenditure on higher education did rise sub-
stantially from the extremely low 1952 base
of RMB Yuan 140 million to RMB Yuan
1913 million (about U.S.$1270 million then)
in 1980, and to RMB Yuan 6280 million
(about U.S.$1203 million) in 1990. In 1990,
the average annual expenditure on each student
at tertiary level was high for China, but low in
3500 RMB Yuan (about U.S.$673).
Political movements have played a major
role in the development of education in China,
not least since 1949. Indeed, there must be
very few countries where education, particu-
larly the higher education system, has been
affected so much by sharp changes in the
political climate during the twentieth century.
The universities came through the difficult
years of post-war China only to encounter
massive changes brought about by the pro-
ponents of the Cultural Revolution for more
than a decade. Higher education institutions
were forced to stop enrolling new students.
Hundreds were closed for many years. Others
provided higher education of low quality. Their
overall output of graduates shrank, leaving the
country extremely short of expertise, especially
scientific and technological.
After the Cultural Revolution ended in 1978,
China declared its national priorities under
socialist economic reconstruction. The four
modernisations (industrial, agricultural, scien-
tific and technological, and defence) were at the
heart of China's new policies. The government
set as a long-term goal the quadrupling of ag-
ricultural and industrial outputs between 1980
and 2000, with per capita GNP to increase

27
28 WEIXIANG MA and DAVID HAWKRIDGE
from about U.S.$300 to U.S.$800, rising to
about U.S.$4000 by 2050 (Zhao, 1982; Deng,
1990). To accelerate the four modernisations,
China announced and implemented policies of
economic reform and "open door to the outside
world", and began to devolve power to local
government.
There was widespread agreement in Chi-
na that these policies of economic develop-
ment and reform could only succeed if there
were sufficient high-level expertise. Structural
changes would not be enough. Reform of
education was therefore central to the gov-
ernment's thought and action. Almost alone
among the larger developing countries, China
chose to make television education a very
important part of this reform, because the
government decided that conventional higher
education institutions could not carry the whole
responsibility for training, in a short time, so
many people needed for economic and social
reconstruction.
Television education in China is not quite
the same as television education elsewhere.
The term is used to cover a wide range of
teaching supported by television broadcasts
and/or, these days, video recordings. The pro-
grammes are of a style that leans heavily
on traditional methods of teaching in China,
rather than on the styles of what might be
called "U.K.-type" documentaries or "U.S.-
type" instructional television. As such, they fit
the Chinese culture, and are cheap and easy
to produce in studio. Lecturers seldom appear.
Instead, their voices "over" are heard explain-
ing what is written on a blackboard on-camera,
or sometimes what is being demonstrated with
equipment.
The term is also used to cover use of
other media, such as radio or audiocassettes.
Institutions using the programmes often ex-
pect their students to study from texts as
well and to work under the supervision of
a teacher or mentor. Television, as a pres-
tigious medium in China, has given its name
to what might be called elsewhere distance
education, educational broadcasting or simply
multi-media education. As television sets have
become much more widely available, television
education has widened its audience to include
people at home as well as in schools, colleges,
study centres, community centres and places
of work.
POLICY ON THE CHINESE TELEVISION
UNIVERSITIES
In 1978, an important policy decision was
taken by the government to use television edu-
cation at the post-secondary level. In February
that year, the Ministry of Education and the
Ministry of Radio and Television, with the ap-
proval of the State Council, jointly sponsored
the foundation of what are now internationally
known as the Chinese television universities.
Within a year, the Central Radio and Televi-
sion University (CRTVU) was established in
Beijing, and 28 Provincial Radio and Television
Universities (PTVUs) were set up in provinces,
autonomous regions and municipalities (see
Hawkridge and McCormick, 1983 for details
of the nature and early growth of the TVUs).
Together with the CRTVU, these formed a
national network.
Initially, the TVUs served students enrolled
from groups such as professional staff, indus-
trial and commercial workers, scientific and
technological technicians, secondary school
teachers and the military (People's Libera-
tion Armies). The TVUs were not "open
universities" in the sense of granting open
admission. On the contrary, to gain entry to
the undergraduate courses students had to have
graduated from senior secondary schools and
passed a sufficiently high level the examination
for entry to higher education.
At first the PTVUs taught through a com-
bination of television (or video), radio (or
audio) and print, most of it produced by the
CRTVU, which itself registers no students. In
the early 1980s, most students were released
on basic pay to study 36 hours a week in
local classes during the day, often at their
place of work or in a special study centre,
usually under a mentor. Others studied part-
time, either during working hours or in their
spare time, often after work. Although there
was no change in official policy on entrants,
part-timers became the majority among the
undergraduates. Students could select a single
course which interested them or courses within
one or more disciplines. They were awarded a
post-secondary or college-level diploma after
completing sufficient recognised courses, but
could also take courses without credit.
Administratively, the TVUs at various lev-
els were under the direct leadership of gov-
 CHINA'S CHANGING POLICY AND PRACTICE IN TELEVISION EDUCATION, 1978-1993
ernments at corresponding levels. Thus the
CRTVU was responsible directly to the State
Education Commission, with links to the Minis-
try of Radio and Television. PTVUs were con-
trolled by the provinces, autonomous regions
and municipalities, and branch TVUs were
under the leadership of their own local gov-
ernments. The whole system operated within
tile framework of national, provincial, regional
and local government policies.
Academically, under policies of the early
1980s the CRTVU controlled almost all of
the undergraduate curriculum through courses
il made and the national examinations it set.
PTVUs were responsible, in some respects,
for guiding the branch TVUs, supporting them
with printed teaching materials and broad-
casting (or providing on cassette) basic and
specialised courses.
THE WORLD BANK LOAN FOR TELE-
VISION EDUCATION
To modernise the technology and manage-
r~ent of the TVUs (and of a separate group
of new polytechnics, outside the television
education policy), the Government decided
to approach the World Bank in 1982 for
loan of U.S.$85 million. This was an un-
usual step to take, because the Bank sel-
dom funds television-related education projects
(see Hawkridge, 1988). About U.S.$65 million
was borrowed to equip television stations and
7?VUs and to train their staff to use the new
imported equipment and manage the system.
A roughly equal sum in RMB was provided
by central and provincial governments to refur-
Irish, build and furnish studios, offices, teaching
centres and other buildings.
The effects of the policy decision to ap-
proach the Bank were considerable and are
likely to be long-lasting. Slightly less than the
full loan was spent, but the building targets
were exceeded. Without the loan, central and
provincial governments would probably not
have undertaken such a massive construction
programme, nor would they have invested so
much in imported and local equipment. Staff
training received a considerable boost during
the six years of the project, 1984-90. Perhaps
the most obvious sign of the loan's impact
was the installation of nine new ultra-high
frequency (UHF) transmitters in major cities,
most of which built tall transmission towers to
29
house them. These same cities also built new
television studios, as did many other provincial
capitals. By 1987, the TVUs were in a strong
position to exploit television education.
There were errors, however, in the imple-
mentation of the World Bank project at the
TVUs. Among the avoidable errors was the
purchase of mainframe computers that could
not handle Chinese characters. The comput-
ers were installed to help TVU managers to
deal with the very large numbers of students
enrolled each year. Despite strenuous efforts,
the software problems could not be solved
satisfactorily. Most of the mainframes have
never been used for management. Instead,
where possible, the tasks have been transferred
to microcomputers.
An error which was probably unavoidable
was the purchase of television studio equip-
ment which was rapidly made obsolete by
changes in the technology. Television studios
in many countries have been closing down in
the last five years because of the arrival of new
lightweight cameras able to operate well under
a wide range of lighting conditions. The old
type of "film set" in a studio is needed far
less. In 1987, China had more well-equipped
new educational television studios than any
other country. By 1992, they were largely
obsolete. Unfortunately, the TVUs had very
little money with which to buy the latest
equipment. Indeed, some had no budget even
for making programmes.
DECLINING U N D E R G R A D U A T E
ENROLMENTS
Meanwhile, during the implementation of
the Bank project, major changes were occur-
ring in student enrolrnents, within the context
of policy reforms that emphasised quality ra-
ther than quantity in higher education, and that
paid more attention than before to specialised
(vocational) secondary education. In 1985, the
number of undergraduate students in the TVU
system reached a maximum of 673,000. There-
after the number decreased year after year:
604,400 in 1986, 565,948 in 1987, 417,400
in 1989 and 387,813 in 1990 (Department
of Planning and Finance, 1986; State Edu-
cation Commission, 1988, 1989; Department
of Planning and Construction, 1991). In 1993,
the figure was around 200,000 (Xie, 1993).
The decline in undergraduate numbers may
30 WEIXIANG MA and DAVID HAWKRIDGE
have been mainly due to new policies or
decreased demand; it is hard to say. First, it
is true that conventional adult higher education
institutions managed to expand. In 1981, the
total enrolment in adult education institutions
of higher learning (except the TVUs) stood at
1.1 million but many were still closed after
the Cultural Revolution. The number dropped
to 714,000 in 1983, then increased to reach
1.29 million in 1987; in 1990 it was 1.35 million
but dropped again to 1.19 million in 1991
(Department of Planning and Construction,
1992).
Second, a new and flexible self-study ex-
amination system was established nationally
in 1983, after trials in several major cities
(McCormick, 1986). It attracted many young
people, who studied by themselves in their
spare time using a prescribed syllabus, usually
without attending classes, then sat examina-
tions. If they passed, they gained credit towards
a diploma of higher education, like the TVUs'
students, provided that the courses they had
taken were recognised for this purpose by being
strictly defined in a "teaching plan" for that
discipline. In 1987, to make study easier for
these spare-time students, many of whom are
in rural areas, the State Education Commission
decided to move towards integrating television
education, correspondence courses and the
self-study examination system. Self-study can-
didates were encourage to use TVU materials,
including the broadcasts. TVU students who
had passed one or two courses could switch to
self-study to complete their degree.
A third possible reason for the decline in
undergraduate numbers in the television uni-
versities was that many students' parents were
still prejudiced against these universities: they
wanted their children to pursue a conventional
higher education, in the hope that it would be a
ladder to a higher social position. Where choice
was available, they pushed their children away
from the TVUs.
Particularly noticeable was the decline in
numbers of undergraduates studying full-time,
and in the proportion that they made up of
total undergraduate enrolment. In 1986, they
made up 56 per cent of the total; the following
year, they made up 37 per cent, and by 1990,
the figure was 25 per cent. McCormick (1986)
reported that employers had become less and
less inclined to give their staff paid leave for
full-time study; facilities and funds were often
lacking, and there were difficulties in allocating
graduates to suitable jobs.
The decline in undergraduate student numb-
ers at the TVUs was more than compensated
for, however, by increases in numbers of stu-
dents at other levels such as specialised sec-
ondary school and post-university professional
updating. These increases were the direct result
of policy changes or reforms.
THE TVU REFORMS OF 1986 AND 1987
Two TVU-related reforms were announced
by the State Education Commission in 1986.
The first affected the TVUs' admission system:
enrolment of new adult students was brought
into line with the national plan for adult
education, enabling them to enter, if they
wished, through taking the unified entrance
examination for adult post-secondary institu-
tions. Previously, they had had to achieve a
sufficiently high score in the examination for
admission to higher education. The impact of
this reform was not obvious, however, and
undergraduate numbers declined despite it.
The second reform was the establishment
of "short-cycle" TVU courses for students
who had just graduated from senior secondary
schools and who had passed at a satisfac-
tory level the national entrance examination
for higher education institutions. Short-cycle
courses in Chinese universities are provided
within a two-year teaching programme that
does not lead to a degree. In the TVUs, these
courses were provided within a three-year
teaching programme. The TVU reform was
quickly acted on: about 1000 kinds of short-
cycle courses are now established in 200 TVU
branches, covering subjects such as science and
engineering, economics, and teacher training.
In 1990, they contained 73,352 students, many
of whom had chosen to enter these classes
because they were not assigned to jobs and
had not done well enough to gain places
in conventional higher education institutions.
The State Education Commission encouraged
the TVUs to enroll such students under con-
tracts with employers willing to pay something
towards costs.
In 1987, three further reforms of the TVUs
were announced, in the context of a general
drive to improve the quality of higher education
in China (State Education Commission, 1988).
 CHINA'S CHANGING POLICY AND PRACTICE IN TELEVISION EDUCATION, 1978-1993
First, the CRTVU was obliged to cede to the
PTVUs part of its power in formulating the
curriculum. The PTVUs were told that they
could make up to 40 per cent of all courses
offered, with an emphasis on specialised op-
tions. The 60 per cent delivered by the CRTVU
were mainly standard courses, obligatory for
all undergraduates. This decentralising reform
teok into account the many newly built stu-
dios and PTVUs' desire to make their own
courses.
Second, to raise the quality of the TVUs'
intake, the State Education Commission ruled
that all students entering the undergraduate
programme should first pass the national uni-
versity entrance examination. It also ruled that
no more "free viewers" should be allowed to
enter this programme. These were students
who did not take the entrance examination and
studied by themselves. They could still obtain
certificates if they passed the examinations in
recognised subjects. The effect of this reform
was that numbers of part-time undergraduates
in the system declined slowly as those who
had already entered completed their stud-
ies or dropped out altogether. At the same
time, however, numbers of full-time entrants
were declining even faster, for reasons already
discussed.
The third major reform announced in 1987
concerned the TVUs' role in "post-university"
and professional continuing education. Their
emphasis up to 1986 on teaching young people
with no post-secondary educational qualifica-
tions meant that the curriculum was aimed at
meeting immediate national needs for middle-
level expertise. They paid most attention to
human resource development required to sat-
isfy short-term needs of individuals, enterprises
and society in general. Unlike Japan's Univer-
sky of the Air, the TVUs did not have as
their main objective to develop continuing
education, although in fact, together with many
olher educational institutions in China, they
were providing what was continuing education
for some students. The TVUs had become
post-secondary education institutions for both
working people and students recently out of
senior secondary schools. They were already
taking in continuing education students, and
allowed them to study flexibly, offering a wide
choice of subjects and courses.
The term "continuing education" was used in
China for the first time in 1987, however, in an-
31
nouncing the reform and development of adult
education. Continuing education was to be one
of the five "missions" for adult education,
according to the State Education Commission.
In December 1987 a joint statement on devel-
oping "post-university" continuing education
was issued by the State Education Commis-
sion, the State Science Commission, the State
Economic Commission, the Ministry of Labour
and Personnel, the Ministry of Finance and the
Chinese Association of Science. It envisaged
development of television education for techni-
cal staff, managers and others who had already
taken short courses at university and needed
further training. Normally, training after uni-
versity in China is carried out by factories and
businesses, higher education institutions and
scientific research institutes. The curriculum
for post-university television education had
to be organised to suit knowledge levels and
demands, for participants from a wide variety
of posts. New theories and techniques were
included, with a strong emphasis on scientific
research topics, technical innovations, new
products development and modern manage-
ment of trainees' own organisations.
The post-university continuing education
courses are short, suitable for in-service and
spare-time learning. They focus on engineering,
economics and finance and lead to profes-
sional certificates. The television broadcasts
emphasise new knowledge and new techno-
logy, and are related to students" immediate
needs on the job. More than half a million
students had registered for these courses by
1988, many of them from the scientific and
technological sectors of the economy. Data are
not available for the last few years, but there
are some indications that continuing education
numbers in the TVUs declined after the first
enthusiasm.
IMPLEMENTING THESE REFORMS
Implementing these new policies was certain-
ly not without problems. The State Education
Commission wanted to strengthen manage-
ment of the TVUs and promote academic
quality. It tried to do so by setting up two
conferences. In 1986, TVU presidents were
gathered together to discuss how the reforms
of that year could best be implemented. It
was clear that enrolments should be based
32 WEIXIANG MA and DAVID HAWKRIDGE
on conditions in each province and locality,
since the co-operation of enterprises would be
needed if working students were to be released
during the day for study. Financial constraints
in all provinces required that limits be placed on
enrolments of students straight from secondary
school. The quality of education offered by the
TVUs also needed raising. There was concern
about the overall efficiency of the system: many
unregistered students watched the broadcasts,
but did not attend tutorial classes, with the
result that their performance in examinations
was very poor.
In 1987, a national conference was called
on matters such as the relationship between
quality and quantity in the TVUs, and between
TV education for credit and education not for
credit. The stress was on quality. The new
policies were aimed at improving the efficiency
of TVUs by increasing reliance on spare-time
teachers for tutorials, closing down classes of
"self-study" (independent study) students who
could not cope on their own, reforming the
examination system and strengthening teach-
ing materials through editing. The curriculum
was to be reformed through PTVUs teaching
fewer standard compulsory courses and adding
new specialised, elective courses, with greater
emphasis on practical work, to meet local
needs. As for teaching methods, registered
students would be expected to learn more on
their own; they would receive less teaching
by television and video. This was in line with
national higher education policy of decreasing
the contact hours for teaching and increasing
the time for independent study.
In addition, the State Education Commis-
sion encouraged joint running of schools and
merging of various institutions involved in
the television education system with others,
such as "correspondence universities, univer-
sities of workers, night universities and con-
ventional universities" (Xie, 1991). Courses
studied under the TVUs could be recognised
by local institutions, which could award cer-
tificates jointly with the TVUs to successful
candidates. The TVUs could teach the standard
courses, and local institutions the specialised
ones. These steps were not easy. By 1990,
besides the CRTVU, there were 40 TVUs at
provincial, regional or municipal levels, with
1221 branches and 21,711 teaching classes in
districts and villages (Department of Planning
and Construction, 1991). By 1991, the TVUs
had risen in number to 44 (Xie, 1991). Local
authorities and enterprises wanted to continue
to exercise their own power. The trammel of
traditional ideas of running schools within their
own campus, without reliance on national or
provincial teaching resources, could not be
escaped easily or quickly.
D E V E L O P M E N T OF RADIO/TV
SPECIALISED S E C O N D A R Y SCHOOLS
In the twentieth century, China has often
been short of middle-level technicians and has
lacked a long-term plan for educating them.
From 1946 to 1956, for each student in a Chin-
ese institution of higher education there were
two or three in specialised secondary schools,
which offer technical education. Then followed
a decade or so in which there were more
in higher education than in these secondary
schools. Parity between them was more or less
restored after the Cultural Revolution and in
1990 there were 2.08 million in higher educa-
tion compared with 2.18 million in specialised
secondary schools. Expansion of higher edu-
cation was accompanied by expansion in the
specialised secondary schools, but at a slow
rate, exacerbating the shortage of middle-
level technical expertise. A national survey
of technical personnel in 1983 indicated that
for each person with post-secondary schooling
there were two who had had specialised sec-
ondary schooling, but the ratio had improved
to 1 : 1.6 by 1987 (Zhou, 1991). The survey
also revealed that 30 per cent of senior per-
sonnel with post-secondary qualifications were
doing jobs requiring expertise that could be
acquired through specialised secondary school.
This inappropriate use of senior personnel,
arising from the shortage of technicians, is not
cost-effective.
After the Cultural Revolution, China's pol-
icies of economic reform and "open door to the
outside world" promoted rapid development
of enterprises in many rural areas. Scientific
and technological methods were introduced
widely in agriculture. Local governments and
farmers alike found that lack of technicians
restricted the development of small enter-
prises and modernisation of farming. To solve
the problem, several economically-developed
provinces located near the east coast began
to establish radio/TV specialised secondary
 CHINA'S CHANGING POLICY AND PRACTICE IN TELEVISION EDUCATION. 1978-1993
schools, without waiting for central govern-
ment policy to be decided. The schools were
to train young people who had never been
to such a secondary school. They offered
two-year in-service courses through distance
education. Starting as early as 1985, Tianjin
and Changchun, two northern cities, estab-
lished their own TV specialised secondary
schools, offering courses in accountancy, sta-
tistics, industrial and commercial management.
Changchun put many students aged 15-18 in
these schools and trained them for jobs. Other
pilot schools were in Liaoning province, east
of Beijing, and in Shandong province, a little
further south.
Basing its policy on experience gained in
these pilots and taking into account the acute
shortage of technicians, the State Education
Commission requested that local education
authorities and others should use the po-
tential of television education to establish
specialised secondary schools. The Commission
also wanted to see the development of short
courses at a slightly lower level for "junior"
technicians and others, such as managers, who
do not require full technical training.
At the national conference in 1987, the idea
of TV vocational and technical education was
taken further. The Minister of Education at
the time, He Dongchang, stated that tele-
vision education should aim to train more
technicians at primary and secondary levels.
He emphasised that development of specialised
secondary schools, using multi-media methods
of teaching, was an important priority for
the next decade. Their curriculum was to
be aimed at meeting the economic needs of
factories, enterprises, small towns and villages.
The TV schools were to cooperate closely with
other specialised secondary schools including
those teaching through conventional means,
those for adults only, and those teaching by
correspondence.
The new policies were quickly put into prac-
tice. By 1990, there were 170 TV specialised
secondary schools, with 323,000 students. No
less than 110,400 students completed their
courses that year (Department of Planning
and Construction, 1991). Expansion continued
in 1991, with 467,200 students registering in
107 schools (a marked increase in efficiency),
and nearly 167,000 students completed their
courses (Department of Planning and Con-
struction, 1992).
33
DELIVERY OF TELEVISION
E D U C A T I O N BY SATELLITE
Besides being very large, China is a country
in which many millions live in comparative
isolation, thinly scattered in rural areas, par-
ticularly in the west, or in mountainous terrain.
Central China Television (CCTV) undertakes
general broadcasting nationwide in China, but
experiences substantial technical difficulties in
providing a terrestrial television service for rur-
al people through its fairly extensive microwave
network. Moreover, CCTV (and local stations)
does not have enough airtime over this network
to meet the demands of television education as
well as those of general broadcasting. CCTV's
terrestrial stations used to broadcast about
36 hours a week of TVU programmes (on
Channels 1 and 2) in the 1980s, but they
now carry (on Channel 2) only 2-3 hours
a day, Monday to Saturday, for the TVUs.
This change of policy on the part of CCTV
and the local stations means that today the
transmitters purchased with World Bank loan
funds are being used very little for education.
By using a satellite to transmit programmes
over a very wide "footprint", however, China
has increased access of people everywhere
to television education, but particularly rural
people. Satellite-borne transmissions started
on July 1, 1986. Together with the terrestrial
transmissions, about 5000 hours were broad-
cast in 1991. In 1993, the satellite transmit-
ter broadcast television education programmes
from 6.00 am every day of the week, finishing
either around midday or in the late afternoon.
Satellite dishes and receivers, all made in
China, are now installed at many educational
institutions and elsewhere. As a result many
more students than before can gain access to
television education,
As early as 1985, the State Education Com-
mission started to prepare for satellite trans-
missions. After a conference with other Com-
missions and Ministries, including the Ministry
of Broadcasting, it decided in December 1985
that the satellite would be used mainly for
in-service training of primary and secondary
school teachers (about half the transmission
time), with some adult education and some
technical secondary education. The policy was
derived from 1985 reforms calling for nine years
of basic education for all by the year 2000.
This target could not be achieved while about
 34 WEIXIANG MA and DAVID HAWKRIDGE
70 per cent of junior secondary school teachers CRTVU, and 12 courses were offered that
and 20 per cent of primary school teachers year, including tree culture, maintenance
were unqualified. The task of upgrading these of agricultural machinery, energy sources
teachers, scattered in schools all over the in the countryside, agricultural environ-
country, could not be tackled by the con- mental protection, and family planning,
ventional teacher training institutions alone, health and hygiene. Students entering the
therefore television education delivered by School need no entrance qualification, and
satellite seemed a likely alternative method. they can gain certificates if they are suc-
The broadcasts were originally intended to be cessful (Ding and Zang, 1991). The Liao
of four kinds: Yuan scheme complements the work of
1. Programmes aimed at improving teach- the Central Agricultural Radio and TV
ing for basic education. The State Edu- School, which had about 450,000 students
cation Commission established the Chi- in 1990.
na Educational Television Normal College 4. Additional broadcasts for the CRTVU.
to prepare in-service courses for teachers In 1992 these were on managerial ac-
in primary and lower secondary schools. counting, computers, Japanese language,
These courses consist of text and broad- English language and so on.
casts via satellite. In 1992, CETV carried
teachers' broadcasts on subjects such as These new arrangements, which involved CCTV,
school management, chemistry, physics, CETV and local transmission stations (which
electricity, mathematics, history, geogra- rebroadcast the satellite's signals as well as
phy, psychology, Chinese language and carrying their own educational programmes),
English language. Teachers are enrolled as well as the CRTVU, PTVUs, the CETV
part-time, many taking just one subject Normal College and many local institutions,
at a time. Many make progress, through require considerable co-ordination. Unfortu-
passing successive examinations, towards nately, a lack of monitoring and feedback
a diploma, but others do not study for makes this task difficult.
credit. Other teacher training colleges and
units at provincial and regional levels are
local management units in the day-to-day MONITORING AND E V A L U A T I O N
running of the scheme, which is completely Implementation of these policies has been
outside the TVUs. monitored by the State Education Commission
2. Programmes aimed at primary school teach- with the assistance of Provincial Education
ers. The CETV Normal College prepared Commissions. Monitoring is based on annual
these programmes too, providing 2-3 year reports from the institutions, which are vis-
courses. In the period 1986--88, 280,000 ited annually by inspection teams. The State
primary secondary school teachers regis- Auditing Bureau has an important role in this
tered as students, many of them in classes process, because it is required to send annual
organised by local education authorities; reports to the State Council, the Ministry of
probably about another half million were Finance and the State Education Commission.
studying without registering. More recent Reports are also prepared for provincial and
figures have not been published yet. local governments by similar bureaus operating
at these levels. The Ministry of Finance and
3. Programmes in support of the Liao Yuan the Bureau of Audio-Visual Education have
("Prairie Fire" or "Reach the Country- made visits from time to time, but without a
side") national rural education scheme, systematic framework for monitoring.
which is organised locally, under the broad Apart from these monitoring reports, evalu-
authority of the TVUs. The CRTVU ation has been of two kinds, restricted so far
launched in 1988 courses in freshwater fish to the TVUs. Following a pilot study (Ma,
farming, animal husbandry and training for 1987), a tracer study, the first of its kind
teachers of agricultural science. In 1990, in China, of the views of a large sample of
the State Education Commission set up graduates and their employers was undertaken
a Liao Yuan School, administered by the by CRTVU's research department, directed by
 CHINA'S CHANGING POLICY AND PRACTICE IN TELEVISION EDUCATION. 1978-1993
the State Education Commission. Over 340,000
graduates, covering the years 1983--86, received
questionnaires and so did their employers.
CRTVU obtained an 80 per cent return from
them. The results showed considerable satis-
faction with the TVU degree, although there
were also some complaints.
At the end of the World Bank project a
major evaluation, covering many aspects of the
investment, was carried out by the television
universities under the guidance from the State
Education Commission. Despite considerable
difficulties in obtaining accurate and valid data,
this collaboration led to a report, summarised
in Hawkridge and Chen (1991). The main
positive finding was that very large numbers of
students, at several levels, had benefited from
the TVU system during the project (1984-90).
The report also noted a range of problems,
some of which reduce the system's efficien-
cy, but none of which has implications for
broad television education policy in China in
the 1990s.
Although precise statistics cannot be pro-
~ided, the number of TVU graduates (with
college diplomas) 1979-91 was reported as
1.29 million, while over 3 million students
passed TVU courses not for credit towards a
diploma (Xie, 1991). As yet, there has been
no formal evaluation of the CETV Normal
College's operation, although the College, with
only a small staff, comes under the reporting
system in much the same way as the much larger
CRTVU.
TELEVISION E D U C A T I O N IN CHINA
BEYOND 2O00 AD
The State Education Commission recent-
ly formulated a new National Programme
for Education Reform and Development, ap-
proved by the Central Committee and the
State Council in February 1993. Item 13 of
whe Programme declared that China would
develop vigorously television education and
aim to complete by 2000 AD all the TV
ground stations for the satellite broadcasting
network. So much for the immediate future,
but what are the likely trends of policy and
practice regarding television education in China
beyond 2000 AD? General education policy in
China is determined by long-term goals such as
education for all, to meet the needs of society.
From within China, education is seen as serving
35
broad policy objectives such as maintenance of
public morals, teaching the social rules, control-
ling population growth, protecting the natural
environment, conserving natural resources and
so on. These long-term objectives must be
placed against highly specific short-term ob-
jectives such as training sufficient technicians
to meet the needs of the car manufacturing
industry, or upgrading sufficient numbers of
science teachers for secondary schools.
It seems very likely that television education,
despite its shortcomings, will first be called
upon to meet these short-term objectives. As
the Chinese TVUs have shown, very large
numbers of students can be reached quickly
and at low cost through television education.
There is no need, even in a vast country
like China, to wait for tens of thousands of
schools or colleges to be built and hundreds
of thousands of teachers to be trained to teach
in them.
Once those short-term objectives have been
met, and assuming that no new ones have been
defined, television education can play its part in
moving China towards the longer-term goals.
Education for all may be achievable, with the
help of television education, long before it
is achievable through conventional classrooms
and teachers. Lifelong education for all is a goal
not yet achieved in any country, yet through
television education adults in many walks of
life in China will be able to educate themselves.
The goal should be to promote the quality of
life for all the people, kindergartners, young-
sters, the middle-aged and the old. Governors
and peasants, professionals and housekeepers,
all can benefit from television education, even
China's 200 million illiterates.
Policy is needed to guide providers of tele-
vision education, at national, provincial and
local levels. The State Education Commission
might well reconsider its own policies on tele-
vision education, which sits uneasily within the
Commission's traditional education. Television
education almost everywhere in China is still
not well governed: it is weakly managed and
poorly resourced considering its high output.
Its staff are under-qualified and often inexpe-
rienced. Some change jobs too frequently and
most need further training to do their jobs well.
Budgetary procedures ignore direct costs, such
as full-time students' basic salaries, paid by
employers in China. The quality of teaching,
by television and print, is not high enough.
36 WEIXIANG MA and DAVID HAWKRIDGE
The efficiency of the institutions and of their
local centres varies widely, and is sometimes
very low. Although success has been reported
(see Xie, 1989), there is much that could be
improved.
If only one new policy were introduced in
China in the next few years, what should it
be? Perhaps that monitoring and evaluation of
television education should be obligatory, thus
providing the feedback on which later reforms
can be based.
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