China Rural Distance Education and Construction of the New Countryside

After entering the 21st century, the Chinese Government has attached great importance to agriculture, rural areas and farmers, and has adopted a series of policies in favor of agriculture, such as enhancing the construction of agricultural infrastructures, accelerating the progress in agricultural sciences and technologies, uplifting the comprehensive agriculture production capacity, promoting restructure of agriculture, creating more employment for rural workers, increasing investment in agriculture and realizing faster growth of rural income, which have brought about positive changes in agriculture and rural development. This year, the Chinese Central Government released it first major document on the building the new socialist countryside — the primary task in the 11th Five Year Plan period, in which it makes the top priority in improving education level of rural laborers and promoting overall development of rural society. The Central Agricultural Broadcasting and Television School (CABTS) as a rural distance education institution with 25 years of experiences has been consistently implementing farmers’ training program in line with the needs to the country. This paper intends to present the audience with the rural distance education and training programs implemented by the CABTS in recent years, as well as its achievements and experiences, in promoting agricultural and rural economic development, ameliorating rural environment, increasing farmers’ income, improving rural surplus labor transfer and strengthening skill training both in agriculture and non-agriculture sectors.