The Study On Rural Distance Education Problems

The establishment and development of rural distance education system is helpful to improve farmers’qualities of science, technology and culture, the economic and social development in rural areas, which is significant in theory and practice. In this paper, the author takes Taian,a city in Shandong province as an instance, to analyze systematically its present problems of the rural distance education through the analysis ways of theory-empirical, and qualitative-quantitative. And the main conclusions are drawn as follows:(1) At present, distance education in rural areas in China is characteristic of strong pertinence and practicality, flexible teaching means, opening, resources sharing, rich information resources, less input and high output. And now, there are three primary teaching modes(playing CD on spot, satellite digital accepting view mode and the network computer classroom) and five service systems (the rural elementary and middle schools’ distance education service system, the rural party member&cadre’s distance education service system, agricultural extension schools’ distance education service system, radio and television university’s distance education service system and the science and education union’s distance education service system.(2) There are three main stages in the development of rural distance education in Taian: establishment stage (1981-1994). tortuous development stage (1995-2000) and the rapid development stage (2001-present). Especially, since2001, the city government has integrated and shared the resources to enhance working efficiency and the comprehensive function, and taken effective measures to build up a platform serving the society, made far preliminary achievements.(3) There are several problems in the development of rural distance education in Taian, such as blocks in the management system, insufficient investment, weaker infrastructure, single teaching forms, weak service ability of agricultural extension schools and poor qualities of the teachers’ team, and so on. (4) Some insights are brought by foreign typical rural distance education. Firstly, we should form our own study, support and service mode by the means of carefully designed course-related teaching materials bag, guiding teachers, network and services provided by learning center and regional center. Secondly, we should take full use of the modern network technology, to make interacted communication between teachers and students and the information asymmetrical. Thirdly, we should construct the advanced management model and operation mechanism of rural distance education and improve our Chinese characteristic rural distance education service system. Meanwhile, there are also some revelation brought by the domestic advanced distance education:we should pay more attention to the quality and effect of our rural distance education, combine the rural distance education with industry structure adjustment closely and increase investments in the construction of rural education service system to spread the new technology faster the farmers.(5) We can take the external and internal measures as the base to perfect the distance education in Taian. The former is to motivate fanners to accept a remote education and integrate the rural distance education resources. The latter is to promote the development of training programs and smooth the management system, select professional personnel, strengthen the construction of the teaching staff and increase funds on rural distance education. Besides these,the chief corresponding measures are to make active researches, guarantee good service and strengthen the evaluation of rural distance education.