The International Conference on ICT and Post-2015 Education was recently held in Qingdao, China, and was jointly organised by UNESCO and the Chinese government. An introductory letter from Chinese President Xi Jinping said that China was working to promote innovative development combining ICT and education, while a speech by Vice Premier Liu Yandong called for systematic integration of ICT in education planning, attention to the role of teachers, knowledge sharing and the building of communication platforms to improve interactions, and understanding among youth from different countries and cultures. The conference issued a “Qingdao Declaration” which emphasised the importance of ICT in meeting the UN’s Education 2030 goals.

Xi and Liu’s comments illustrate the importance of ICT to the Chinese education system. Targets set in 2013 class this as one of the key areas in educational reform and call for broadband and digital education resources in every school, an online learning space available to every pupil, and public service platforms for educational resources and management. The same plan calls for China to train 10 million teachers in the use of ICT in education by 2017, with 3.5 Mn teachers already trained by the end of 2014. Meanwhile, the country’s large-scale national-level teacher training plan makes heavy use of online training, especially in the more rural areas of the country.

Analysis by Liu Xiao xiao, Education Services Manager and Kevin Prest, Senior Analyst:

Information technology is one of the most important issues in the Chinese education sector and has the potential to greatly narrow the education gap between urban and rural China and promote equity in education – a key priority in the government’s education policy. As spelled out in the Key Work Plan for Education Informationisation 2015 issued by the Ministry of Education earlier this year, teacher training is one of the factors needed for this potential to be realised. There are also opportunities for partnership building in online learning platforms addressing China’s urgent needs, such as MOOCS or the Open University of China’s “cloud classroom” project.

Source: http://epaper.gmw.cn/gmrb/html/2015-05/24/nw.D110000gmrb_20150524_3-04.htm