Inclusivity to enhance digital education

China is willing to work with other countries to promote innovation in digital education and make it more equitable, inclusive and of higher quality, Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan said on Monday.

The country will conduct extensive cooperation with the education, technology and industry sectors of all countries to improve the quality of the research and development of digital education resources, and produce more digital education services and products meeting different needs, she said at the opening ceremony of the World Digital Education Conference.

Themed "Digital Transformation and Future of Education", the two-day event from Monday to Tuesday is co-hosted by the Ministry of Education and the Chinese National Commission for UNESCO and being held online and in-person in Beijing.

The whole world should work together to promote the high-quality development of digital education, promote the all-around development of people and the advancement of society and civilization, and make greater contribution to the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, she said.

The development of digital education is conducive to the opening and sharing of quality education resources, promoting balanced education development and education equality, and narrowing the regional and urban-rural gap, so that every student can receive high-quality education and be ensured more opportunities to shine, Sun said.

"While promoting digital education, we should also realize that the fundamental purpose of education is to nurture people, and while digital education changes the way of teaching and learning, what remains unchanged is the essence of education," she said. "We cannot overlook the face-to-face interaction of teachers and students, the emotional communications and the influence of the cultural atmosphere. While passing on knowledge and answering questions, teachers should also teach by setting examples."

China will continue to value the integrated development of digital and traditional education, combine online and in-person teaching and learning, promote the systematic innovation in education concept, method and mode, so that digital education can better serve the people, she added.

Minister of Education Huai Jinpeng said the Chinese government values the development of digital education, which is an important component of the Digital China initiative.

Remarkable progress has been made in education digitalization, with 100 percent of primary and secondary schools in China having internet access and 99.5 percent equipped with multimedia classrooms, he said.

The Smart Education of China platform, which was launched in March last year, has become the largest repository of education resources in the world, with more than 6.7 billion visits since its foundation, he said.

The platform has made basic education smarter and delivered quality and balanced results. It also has 27,000 quality courses of higher education, with 13 million overseas registered users from 166 countries and regions, he said.

Nearly 55 percent of vocational school teachers have carried out blended teaching, explored digital technologies and resources such as virtual simulation and digital twinning to simulate real-life scenarios to meet internship and training needs, Huai said.

Digital education should feature fairness and inclusiveness, be of higher quality, be accustomed to all, and contribute to green development and promote open cooperation, he added.