Date: 21/11/2008

The China International Distance Education Conference 2008, the annual congregation of distance education in China, was held in Beijing from November 20-21. Over 800 professionals from about 400 government bodies, educational institutions and companies attended the conference. ATA was the key sponsor of the event.

The conference opened forums on a series of key issues surrounding distance education today including policy setup for building a lifelong education and learning society, development and the futures of distance and continued education, corporate e-learning strategies and development, the trends of education and the phenomenon of education companies going public, technology development, setting up vocational training system using distance education technologies etc.

Kevin Ma, Chairman and CEO of ATA, delivered his keynote speech in the “Educational Public Company Forum”. In the round table discussion on “Resource sharing in online education and assessment”, ATA introduced the Microsoft IT Academy program in which ATA being the exclusive partner of Microsoft in China, and how its e-learning platform has enabled resource sharing among educators and students. Kevin also shared with the audience ATA experience in working with educational institutions to help develop the vocational training market by taking advantage of the online resources of colleges and universities, as well as ATA insights on the future development in testing and assessment in distance education.