Research On Franchise Management Of Off-campus Modern Distance Higher Education Learning Center

As the pilot project of modern distance education has been put into practice since1999, it has gradually become one of the essential components of the higher education in China. As the basic level organization of the learning system in the colleges and universities which launch the pilot project and establish the learning centers in different cities and areas, off-campus learning centers work as the channel of exchanging teaching information and shoulder responsibilities of distributing the teaching resources. The significance of off-campus learning centers is evident as they play the role of the bond between pilot colleges and students. Because it is the off-campus learning centers which directly face the students, the center-running philosophy and orientation, as well as the number of enrollment and teaching management will immediately influence the center, and then the reputation of the college or universities, which may, at large, impact on the effectiveness and sustainability of the sound development of the distance education. Therefore, to develop a managing mode which is available for most off-campus learning center is of great necessary and importantThis paper probes into the present situation and the existing problems of off-campus learning centers. For the first part, the current research progresses of all specific problems in off-campus learning centers are summarized. Firstly, some of the off-campus learning centers fail to fully understand the substance and characteristics of modern distance education, which, consequently, lead to a deviation on the center-running philosophy and guiding ideas. Secondly, the departments which supervise the learning centers are different, which bring about varies centers-running activities. A few leaning centers have an extremely bad influence on modern distance education because of their bad behavior such as outsourcing, two agents for one center or false promises. Thirdly, some off-campus learning centers, just work as the mouthpiece of the pilot college, fail to provide its students services they deserve. Fourthly, some learning centers blindly expand its scale by increasing the student number in spite of its educational conditions, which result in low teaching quality. According to the problems mentioned above, the author analyses in the second part the actual meaning of franchise management in running learning center and why this managing mode can help to solve these problems and give full play to brand effect of pilot colleges. Lastly, the author elaborates some principles one should pay close attention to when manage the off-campus learning centers and manages to explore a managing mode with the concept of franchise.