Beijing Foreign Study University (BFSU), former Beijing Foreign Languages Institute, which is well known for its multilingual teaching of foreign languages, said on June 21 that it is considering to launch an open online English institute of the largest in China.

As is publicly known, BFSU has cooperated with foreign web technology providers to introduce world-advanced platform of online teaching and has established Online Education College (www.beiwaionline.com). The first nationwide recruitment of students of English major presently has been launched.

Following the principle of "Loose in Enrollment, Strict on Graduates", the online institute aims to provide an enlarged number of students with the benefit of modern long-distance education. After fulfilling all credit hours of the institute within an academic period of five years, students will be granted with academic certificates and diplomas acknowledged by the State.

As is learned, the online institute, in light of the successful experience of UK open universities, will focus on communication between teachers and students through Internet on the basis of self-teaching of students.

While many portal webs of China are experiencing a hard time following a replacement of high-level managerial personnel, being purchased or broken down, some traditional colleges have accelerated their steps of offering online education. So far, 38 Chinese colleges have set up their online institutes instead of four to start up with.

(People's Daily 06/22/2001)