China, the Internet and education

A couple of stories have caught my eye in recent days talking about how companies are looking at the Internet as one crucial way to capitalise on the Chinese thirst for international education.

Virtual China wrote a week ago about the way the Confucious Institute (China's answer to the British Council) was using both a massively multiplayer online game called Chengo Chinese
and the virtual world, Second Life, to spread the joys of learning Chinese. The post notes "people around the world are studying Chinese in order to get closer to the Chinese people, and Chinese are studying English. Virtual environments are starting to provide platforms for Chinese and others to learn from one another".

Picking up the "Chinese studying English" point, we then saw a story on Indiantelevision.com (don't ask about the connections, they're too mind-bending for a Sunday) reporting a deal between the BBC and Chinese portal QQ. The piece, looking as though it is quoting from a BBC press release (which we can't find) says "From 14 February 2007, users of the portalll be able to access BBC Learning English content specially tailored for Chinese speakers".