ABSTRACT
International trade in on-line education offers many opportunities both for countries with an established capacity in the production and dissemination of knowledge and for those seeking to strengthen their own systems of education and knowledge production. Less favoured regions of Europe, transition economies in Europe, and middle-income developing countries can benefit from domestically developed on-line applications as well as from this new area of international trade to reduce their educational and training deficits, change their educational practices, and upgrade their communications infrastructure. Stronger European participation in online education can contribute to increasing the quality of on-line content and to opening channels for international dissemination of rich cultural resources by consolidating alternative forms of expression in various languages other than English. These open channels will help many developing countries to become aware of a richer role they themselves can play in the international on-line education market, allowing them to transcend the narrow role of passive consumers.
