China will vigorously expand  modern long-distance education by allowing more colleges of higher learning to become engaged in this regard and letting more  students enroll through this program.

   Zhang Yaoxue, a senior official in charge of higher learning  with the Ministry of Education, pledged that measures would be  taken to ensure the quality of online teaching, the prime form of  modern long-distance education, so that a life-time study system  could be established in the country.

   According to the official, China began to try modern long- distance education in a group of selected colleges of higher  learning in 1999.

   The experiment has now been spread to 45 colleges of higher  learning in the country and by this autumn, the number of students enrolled for online education had increased to 400,000.