A long-distance on-line education platform is offered for sale at a price of 80 million yuan (US$9.67 million) Thursday in Changsha, capital city of central China's Hunan Province.

Sources said that this is the first multi-media education platform is put for sale in China since the country started its distance education scheme three years ago.

The platform was developed by Hunan University, which started the first on-line university education project in China in 1998.

The platform enables interactive learning for net-surfers by combining modern information technology with multi-media techniques, developers said.

Statistics show that China now has 31 universities providing on- line education packages and has some 50,000 distance-education receivers.

Chinese experts are expecting a surge in the population receiving distance education within ten years. The transfer of the platform will greatly help popularize China's distance education, said an expert from Hunan University.

(Xinhua News Agency 10/11/2001)