The Ministry of Education (MOE) has pledged in its work agenda for 2000 to start a distance-learning project and form an open education network.

Vice-minister of Education Wei Yu said that China will form a multifunctional distance-learning network by the year 2010, in a move to establish a educational system in the country that serves people of all ages.

Distance learning -- taking college courses via the computer --is a strategic choice to improve China's overall education level, Wei said.

The working outline said that the MOE would cooperate with educational television departments to establish a distance-learning program, and to help cultivate China's education software industry.

Wei said that the MOE plans to increase the speed of the Chinese Education and Research Network (CERNET) this year to 155 megabytes per-second.

CERNET, based at Qinghua University, has set branches at universities in eight cities including Beijing, Shanghai, and Nanjing. Qinghua University launched a distance-education program in November, 1994, the first of the kind in China.

The multi-media education college of Hunan University in China's central Hunan Province began on-line enrollment in March 1998, becoming China's first on-line school to offer a college degree.