The Remote Sensing education
in China1 Cheng jichen ( The Department of Technical Training of NRSC) Shi shimin (Remote Sensing Application Center of University) Xu xiru (The Institute Of Remote Sensing Technology Of Peking University) Review When remote sensing technology is going ahead rapidly in or country, remote sensing education is gaining its own momentum too. We start remote sensing education concurrently with other projects of remote sensing in China. From 1975 to 1980 sixteen short courses were held in Peking University, each on lasted 1-3 months long. They did a great deal of propaganda and popularization of remote sensing technology. About 3,000 trainees took in these short courses, most of them had become a mainstay of productive units, research institutes and universities. The education program had greatly promoted development of remote sensing in China. Our government had recognized that the remote sensing technology can not be developed without enough high level professors, engineers at all. So remote sensing education has been emphasized in many ways in our country. Therefore the Department of technical training of NRSC had been established. The united remote sensing application center of Universities was built by the State Education Commission. The Agricultural Remote Sensing Training Center was organized by Ministry of Agriculture. A special remote sensing training organization for city planning was established too, by The State Survey and Mapping Bureau up to now, more than one hundred Universities and opened courses of remote sensing and concerned subjects. There are at least 4,000-5,000 technicians to receive general remote sensing education each year. The remote sensing education in our country goes in many ways, which contains university education, Master degree study and doctorate programs. The on-job training, senior middle school education and special short course are also included. In recent year, the special technical training for Asia region had been successfully held by us. More than ten training materials and text books had been published. We had established dozens of well equipped laboratories equipped for remote sensing education. All in all the education system of remote sensing had taken its form in our country. It is a general tendency of development of modern remote sensing technology to combine remote sensing data with information system. So the knowledge concerned information system has been included into our courses. The total courses contain remote sensing physics. digital image processing for remote sensing, optical processing of remote sensing image, the principal of remote sensing image visual interpretation , infrared remote sensing, micro-wave remote sensing, remote sensing mapping, areophotography , remote sensing geology , remote sensing oceanography, agricultural remote sensing, soil remote sensing, vegetation remote sensing ( including forestry remote sensing), hydrology remote sensing, and so on. In recent year, computer language, data format, data base, information system, artificial intelligence, and knowledge engineering are also required for postgraduates. The Universities which had opened Remote Sensing courses At present, more than one hundred universities had opened courses about remote sensing technology. Among them the Wuhan University of Survey and Mapping Technology had established a department named aerophotography and remote sensing. A section of remote sensing geology had been set in Department of geology of Zhejiang University. The rest universities ah opened 1-3 course concerned remote sensing. There are various kinds of universities in remote sensing, such as universities directly under the leadership of State Education Commision, universities administrated by Ministry of Mineral Resource, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Forestry, Ministry of Railway, Ministry of Hydrology , Bureau of Survey and Mapping, Bureau of Meteorology, and some military universities . There are many disciplines to connect with remote sensing technology, geography , geology, agriculture, forest, aerophotography and mapping, oceanography and hydrology, mathematics, computer science, physics and electronics, Among them, department of geography opened the most amount courses concerning remote sensing , 39% of their total courses Department of geology stands second 15%, Department of aerophotography occupies 12%, Department of agriculture has 10%, Department of computer science has 5% courses connected with remote sensing. Peking University had opened a course "an introduction to remote sensing" for selections of whole university students. According to statistics, the number of students to take remote sensing courses are as follows:
The total number is about 450 per year. Based on this figure, we estimate 5,000 students to attend remote sensing lectures in our country every year. The program for postgraduates This program contains master degree and Docterate. The former has large number, the later just has a few. These program are carried out mainly in universities and Chinese Academy Of Science. The Program of master degree for remote sensing was established in 1987. At that time , the DTT enrolled ten students, then the Institute of Remote Sensing Application of Chinese Academy of Science started enrolment. Now the Units authorized by state to have right to run master degree program are as follows:
The DTT can be treated as an example, from 1987 to 1989, 107 students to be enrolled, among them 74 had already got Master degree, 30% came from geology, 27% came from geography, 6% came from aerophotography, 12% came from physical concerned departments, 5% came from mathematics. Among 74 persons, now 14-20% went abroad for further study, 13-19% worked for universities, 16-21% worked for various ministries , the rest had join commercial companies. The doctorate program was established in 1984. The University of Survey and Mapping Technology, Institute of Remote sensing of Peking University, Chinese Geology University had been authorized to run dortorate program. Qinhua University and State Laboratory of Environment and Resource Information System co-operated with other disciplines to run doctorate program. Up to now, less than 20 persons are enrolled in doctorate program. Remote Sensing courses According to our statistics, 14 courses had been opened for 13 disciplines. Remote Sensing image processing course was taken by many departments. Introduction to remote sensing and optical image processing method were listed second. The courses for postgraduate cover various disciplines and are more theoretical than those for university students. Many problems had been tackled in the course. For example, the master degree students of DTT have to spend one and half years mainly for paper. The name of courses opened by DTT for master degree students are listed below:
The paper for master degree should reach certain level to some scientific problem or production problem. Many topics had been tackled by students, such as
The short course training is an important form of remote sensing education. It contributed a lot to remote sensing cause not only at the beginning, but also at present. Now many special short courses have been held by universities , Institutes of Chinese Academy of Science, production units, even by companies. Two kinds of short courses are carried out nowadays.
We always invite foreign experts to open some short courses in China, Most of them are one of part of technical aid program. Nowadays we begin to do some thing for Asia . One form is to open short courses for them, such as the three-week optical image processing method was held by DTT of NRSC in 1989.22 persons came from eleven countries. Good results had been gained. A short course will be held by Chinese Academy Of Science in 1991 for Remote Sensing association of third world. Short term advanced research is another form of remote sensing education. For example, 2 to 3 persons will take this training in DTT every year. The material of Remote Sensing education There are many books published:
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