Field Research on Distance Education in Rural Areas in Asia

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Distance learning is one of the most promising methods to provide higher education with people in the world. In spite of this, there are few findings of the function of distance higher education. Therefore since 1989, the National Institute of Multimedia Education (NIME) has been conducted a series of comparative studies on distance higher education institutions in Asia and the Pacific regions by interviewing students and graduates of institutions.In 1992, we conducted the research in Malaysia and in Korea. In Malaysia, we interviewed students and graduates in 7 regional study centers of a department of distance education in the Malaysia Institute of Technology and we get some documents about the students' background and graduates' job allocation in the University of Malaysia in order to compare with those of distance education institutions in September.In Korea, We made interviews and sent out questionnaires to students of 8 regional study centers in August and September.In 1993, we conducted the research in China. In November, we visited China and interviewed about 180 students and graduates of 12 higher education institutions in 6 cities. In 12 institutions, 6 are radio and TV universities and other 6 are major comprehensive universities in order to compare with the distance higher education.By these researches, we examined functions and operations of distance higher education institutions, and found that higher education institutions had played an important roll of both nation development and personal social mobility in Asia and the Pacific regions.