The first World Digital Education Conference (WDEC), held in Beijing in 2023, attracted the world’s attention with its in-depth discussions on digital transformation, development, and application of digital learning resources, improvement of digital literacy, and digital education governance. The 2024 WDEC kicked off as scheduled on Jan. 30. Over the past year, China has taken steady steps to push forward educational digitalization, with significant achievements in multiple areas.

Smart Education of China” (SEC) platform

Launched at the beginning of 2022, the SEC platform demonstrates the positive multiplier and spillover effects of digital technology. By the end of 2023, 519,000 educational institutions across China had linked to the platform, benefiting 18.8 million teachers and 293 million learners. It had over 100 million registered users from 200 countries, with 36.7 billion visits.

The platform has incorporated a vast treasure trove of digital resources, including: 88,000 information entries on primary and secondary education, over 10,000 online vocational courses, 27,000 university courses, and nearly 500 courses on innovation and entrepreneurship.

The platform was designed to fulfill five functions, i.e., supporting learning, teaching, governance, research, and outreach and cooperation. It also provides channels for training graduates in job-seeking skills and organizing teacher capacity-building activities. For example, during the 2023 summer holiday, the Ministry of Education (MOE) organized online workshops on a broad spectrum of topics, benefitting 16 million teachers at different educational levels around the country. In addition, the platform also provides support for the implementation of a variety of national policies and strategies, such as the “Double Reduction” policy, the development of “Digital China,” the creation of a lifelong learning culture nationwide, and rural rejuvenation.

To raise teachers’ awareness of using digital technology to optimize and reform their teaching activities, the Standards on Teachers’ Digital Literacy were issued in 2023. Meanwhile, large-scale capacity-building activities were also regularly organized through the SEC platform to equip teachers with adequate capacity to employ up-to-date smart applications in teaching, with a view to constantly improving their teaching quality.

Balanced development of quality education resources

In today’s China, thanks to digital technology, an increasing number of excellent courses are available to students from different regions at different times—something that was previously quite unbelievable, especially in the most remote regions of the country.

Ningxia, for example, embraced the new opportunities brought about by digital transformation. As a western border region, its educational development used to be hampered by the shortage of quality resources as well as a huge urban-rural gap. Now, however, by promoting full use of the all-encompassing SEC platform across the region, Ningxia has abolished previously persistent educational barriers and made great strides towards ensuring balanced and quality education for all. the 2022 UNESCO ICT in Education Prize. Stefania Giannini, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education, hailed “Smart Education of China” as an outstanding initiative for ensuring universal access to public digital learning platforms as well as the effective use of such platforms. It has also shown the world how to use digital technology to make teaching and learning more accessible, thus providing useful experience for global digital education reform.

A case in point is Jingheyuan Town Central Primary School in Ningxia. Teachers at this school can now give interactive lessons via online applications offered by the National Smart Education Platform to students not only at their own school, but at small village schools 20 kilometers away. In such classes, students from different schools can communicate and have fun together.

The expansion of quality online courses is also under way in higher education. Since its launch ten years ago, the “MOOC Courses Going West” action plan has witnessed the provision of over 190,000 customized online courses to universities in China’s western regions, benefitting 540 million students. The plan has also enabled hybrid teaching practices. For example, during remote laboratory classes about analog electronics, teachers at Shihezi University in Xinjiang can show students how to manipulate devices in a lab at Xidian University in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, so they can conduct experiments.

In the field of vocational education, digitalization has accelerated the integration of industry and education. The Zhejiang Institute of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering is one of numerous vocational colleges that has benefitted a lot from this transformation. Through the use of IT technology, the institute can offer virtual simulation training by visualizing different aspects of an urban subway system, including the rail transit command center, station control rooms, and various subway stations.

A document from July 2023 on the modern vocational education system said that about 200 virtual simulation training based would be established across the country by 2025. In addition, vocational colleges have also been encouraged to set up big data centers to support integrated intelligent teaching, management, and services.

Playing a leading role in innovating digital education solutions for the world

China’s achievements in digital education took the spotlight in September 2023, when the SEC platform project won

Over the past year, the MOE has taken vigorous action to promote policy dialogue on digital education among countries, with topics including the planning, monitoring, and evaluation of digital education, as well as the protection of intellectual property rights, digital safety, and the prevention of ethical risks. It has also advocated the development of smart education platforms, building on the BRICS cooperation mechanism; and has presented good practices in China through the UNICEF’s Gateways to Public Digital Learning project, for which China serves as a leading country.

Meanwhile, the MOE has also supported the “Chinese MOOCs Going Global” project, galvanizing the sharing of free online courses created by universities in China with other countries. For example, nearly 300 courses have been offered to Indonesia, supporting online learning in 3,000 universities in that country.

At the Global MOOC and Online Education Conference in Milan, Italy, in December 2023, a number of documents were adopted that featured content from China concerning its experience transforming higher education. Through the Global MOOC and Online Education Alliance, an organization initiated by Tsinghua University, China has continued to hold dialogues between presidents of famous universities. It has also offered open courses focused on global challenges faced by humanity and hybrid classes involving students from different countries. In addition, it has facilitated the mutual recognition of credits among universities around the world.

The first WDEC ended with a strong call for more dialogue and deeper results-based cooperation. Today, although equal and universal access to education is still a dream for many people around the world, global consensus on the importance of digital education continues to grow, and digital education is expanding at an even faster pace. China will make a great contribution to this process through its significant progress pushing forward educational digitalization.