Because we have students from over the whole world and travelling and financing often is a problem we created all kinds of creative solutions to make the study work for our friends. Distance education can often be done in combination with virtual classrooms for theoretical subjects.

The distance education program leads to a certificate in scientific researcher Chinese health sciences.

You will learn all the theoretical background and get an in depth knowledge of Chinese culture in relation to health, using the classical works that are essential to studying these subjects. And, if you want, it is always possible to extend your studies later on and supplement with the practical courses that are necessary for you to become a practitioner.

Practice subjects require close contact teaching and frequent monitoring of progress. Of course some video monitoring can happen, but for superficial overview only. No one can really learn from video the intricate details of practice. Fortunately self-cultivation is a large part of our program too, so managing these difficulties to comport oneself are part of the program when they apply to you.

Our practice programs are also available for those who can spend a limited time in each year in one of our branches.

But you will become fascinated with what you learn and how you can apply it to help others; this is something that we will work out together with you. If you can gather a group of people for studies then we can also arrange for a teacher or teachers to come to you. Inquire about the possibilities.

The Intercultural Open University is similar like the Oriental College a grassroot organisation born out of idealism. It was founded originally as part of the United Nations education plan and thus the predecessor of the current UN University. it's aim is to make academic education accessible to people who would ordinarily not have acces to such education. This could be because of poverty, lack of educational institutions or ideas that are in conflict with current academic plight.

Citing its founder proff. J. Hakemulder:

"Our work started in 1980 with one of the agencies, namely Educational & Cultural Task Forces (Ecutaf) . After 10 years of experience with development work in Africa for United Nations (Unesco, Unicef and the UN Economic Commission of Africa) it became more and more clear to me that part of some failures could be traced back to the idea that educational and other strategies easily could be transferred to the so called developing countries. Thus, it was decided to establish an organization aiming at educational development based on the cultural background of the particular countries. Consequently, local specialists had to be involved. In most cases cultural anthropologists were requested to give their vision during preparation and execution of projects. The terminology 'task forces' was chosen because we wanted to point at the fact that Ecutaf aims at reacting efficiently, effectively and without the time consuming bureaucracy of most organizations receiving special requests from schools, universities, educational decision makers and governments. With around 80 specialists in their field of expertise, I am proud to say that Ecutaf was the first private foundation in the world with this philosophy."

The IOU program currently contains many subject areas any university might give. But the highly personalized programs give you as student the ability to shape your study the way you need it. What we do is mentoring you into the highest academic achievement possible. Together with you we shape assignments and guide you to mentors suitable to your field of study. any other study you do might become incorporated in your final papers. Interestingly enough papers can often be delivered in local language, but should minimally contain a 15 pages English exerpt for international proofreading.

Why we incorporate IOU in our program is because the IOU distance education program allows any professional and student of Asian native medicines, sports, psychology, religion, culture, science and even esoterics to get high academic degrees and therewith fully participate in the Academic circles.  Our profession needs to contribute to as well as to acquire full academic, political and social recognition.

 

The United Nations University Charter states:

"to contribute, through research and capacity building, the efforts to resolve the pressing global problems that are the concern of the United Nations, Its peoples and Member States".

We all are part of the solution and we do this in the OC as much as in the IOU in the Spirit of Creativity - Progress - Cooperation - Flexibility