On May 16, Vice Education Minister Sun Yao delivered a speech at the keynote session held under the theme of “International partnerships for promoting the equitable, inclusive and transparent use of AI in education”, at the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Education, presenting China’s efforts in leveraging AI for poverty elimination and equity in education.

Sun first briefed participants on the “poverty alleviation through education” strategy that China’s MOE had been implementing in order to break intergenerational transmission of poverty. He said a range of measures had been taken as part of the strategy, such as building a support system under which targeted educational assistance was distributed to students in need, tailoring educational policies to each economically disadvantaged region, and establishing one-on-one support arrangements between universities and schools from these regions.

He noted that big data and AI, by revolutionizing talent cultivation and educational governance models, made it possible for education to play a greater role in poverty alleviation. In this respect, he listed a number of IT-aided measures that MOE had been implementing to facilitate the sharing of quality education resources and build capacity for teachers to be able to apply IT, thereby closing the urban-rural divide in access to quality education. He pledged that going forward, the MOE would tirelessly pursue its efforts to eliminate poverty by unleashing the potential of AI for better learning outcomes.