Hong Kong's economic fortunes have always depended on trade with China. By the mid-1980s, the colonial higher education system was catering to only 6% of the 18-20 age cohort and there was a backlog of adult learners who had been denied access. The Open Learning Institute of Hong Kong was launched in 1989 to overwhelming public response. It…

Research on distance education in Mexico is still in the embryonic stage, in spite of its long history. One indication is that among the lines of research defined by the Mexican Council on Educational Research, the leading organization in the field in Mexico, distance education does not even appear. Only recently, in the last few years, has an…

The history of distance education in Russia and in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is a history of dramatic change in ideology, conceptual framework, and approach. It can be divided into two main stages: initial formation and development into the world's largest system of correspondence learning, from the mid 1920s to the…

France is one of the most modern countries in the world and is a leading force in Europe. A highly literate and well-educated society, France's education statistics for 2003 show 12.1 million French children in primary and secondary education and 2.2 million students in tertiary education. The concept of education as a market commodity--long since…

Botswana is a landlocked semi-arid country sharing boundaries with Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Setswana and English are the official languages, with English being the most used as the language of government and business transactions. In comparison to most African countries, Botswana is culturally homogenous, and nearly 80% of the…