BEIJING, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- Affected by the COVID-19 epidemic at the beginning of this year, China's Ministry of Education has encouraged schools to provide internet lessons to keep millions of students occupied in light of the suspension of classes. Online education has been quickly proliferating across the nation and ushered in a golden development period. However, under the post-epidemic period, it is necessary for online education to upgrade and reform in a bid to achieve a sustained development.
-- Online education in full swing
According to a report released by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) on September 29, due to the COVID-19 epidemic, a total of 282 million school students across the country switched to online courses in the first half of 2020, resulting in a prevalence of online education throughout China.
The report showed that the number of daily active online education users during the COVID-19 outbreak rose from the previous 87 million to 127 million after the 2020 Spring Festival holiday, marking an increase of 46 percent. The added number mainly came from the third-, fourth-, and fifth-tier cities. As of June 2020, online education users in the third-tier cities and below had accounted for 67.5 percent of the total, gaining 7.5 percentage points year on year.
Zhang Yi, founder and CEO of Zhangmen, a domestic provider of online tutorials for students aged 3-18, said that the epidemic has helped raise public recognition of online education. Many people have found it more effective than expected, which represents a great progress.
In the second quarter of this year, as the epidemic has been contained, universities, middle schools and primary schools have resumed class in an orderly manner, which has resulted in a pullback of online education users. However, the number has still stayed at a high level in recent years.
According to the CNNIC report, as of June 2020, the number of online education users in China had reached 381 million, decreasing 42.36 million compared with that in March 2020 and accounting for 40.5 percent of the total internet users.
(Source: CNNIC)
A research report released by iiMedia Research Group, a consulting agency in the mobile internet industry, showed that driven by favorable policies, consumption upgrading and technological innovation, the scale of China's online education and the number of users have both achieved rapid expansion. By 2020, the country's online education market scale is expected to reach 453.8 billion yuan, with the number of users rising to 309 million.
Online education is not restricted by time or place and can help promote resource sharing. In the future, with the improvement of network infrastructure, online education will continue to see its market scale and number of users post gains. It is bound to become an important supplement of traditional education.
-- Problems emerging in the development
During the COVID-19 outbreak, the number of online learning students soared all of a sudden, which has exposed some weakness of online education.
Liu Yanshen, a professor with Central China Normal University, noted that the inadequate network infrastructure is a basic challenge for online education. Some rural areas have no internet access or still suffer from low internet speed; even large cities also have to fix problems like slow or intermittent internet connection.
Moreover, on online education platforms, there lack two-way communication, real-time interaction and information feedback between teachers and students. It is difficult for teachers to evaluate the learning effect or answer students' questions in a timely manner.
Hu Wei, deputy director of the Science, Education, Culture, Public Health and Sports Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) Shanghai Committee, said that the development of online education is hindered by the inadequacy of online education resources and insufficient experience of teachers.
Zhu Yongxin, a member of the 13th CPPCC National Committee, pointed out that many primary and secondary schools in China, especially in some remote areas, are not able to offer systematically online subject courses.
In this regard, Zhu Yongxin suggested that the Ministry of Education should build an educational resource platform, which gathers the best educational resources in China and even the world, in a bid to ensure children in cities and villages can get access to the same educational resources.
-- Upgrading and reform essential to sustained development
According to a survey report issued by iiMedia Research Group, with the development of online education, students and parents have more choices for online platforms. Hence, course content and teaching quality are essential for online education providers to gain competitive edge. They need to return to the essence of education, impress parents with products and services, strengthen technological application, and seek upgrading and innovation.
Cao Peijie, deputy director of the Future School Laboratory of the National Institute of Education Sciences, believed that online education should put expanding network resources, optimizing system configuration and simplifying operation procedures as its top priority, with an aim to ensure the maximum number of students can attend classes normally and meet the demand from surging users.
Liu Yanshen suggested that China should make unified plans, strengthen the construction of online education infrastructure, accelerate internet access speed and cut service fees in a bid to make networks faster and more stable.
Cao Peijie noted that efforts should be made to give a full display of the unique advantages of online education, use big data, artificial intelligence and other technologies to collect data that can reflect online learning effect. By doing so, teachers can get a deep understanding of students, provide them with targeted guidance and tailored learning plans.
Liu Yanshen added that it is necessary to organize outstanding teachers, education experts, digital media experts and information technology personnel to form a working group to jointly develop high-quality online educational resources, and strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights.
"We should try to regulate online education and optimize registration procedures. An online education provider should obtain an Internet Content Provider (ICP) license and then register in the educational administration department," according to Dong Shengzu, director of the Private Education Research Institute of the Shanghai Academy of Educational Sciences.
"We should strive to apply new technology in online education in a large scale and achieve the same or even better teaching scenarios and effects as compared with traditional education," noted Li Guoxun, vice president of VIPKID Children's Education Research Institute, adding that he is confident that more and more parents will take the initiative to choose online education even in the post COVID-19 epidemic era. (Contributed by Zhang Yuan with Xinhua Silk Road, zhangyuan11@xinhua.org)
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