Poverty alleviation through cloud teaching

(File Photo)

In 2015, Taijiang County built the first county-level metropolitan area network (MAN) for education in Guizhou Province. It was a joint project completed by the county, China Mobile and Guizhou GelinNaite Technology Co., Ltd, which installed 1000M broadband in schools, established three cloud platforms for teaching resources management, education video broadcasting and education big data visual analysis.. The cloud enabled teachers and students from villages to get access to classroom teachings of better quality in different locations and engage in real-time interaction.

In the near future, poverty alleviation through education will become a combination of online and offline activities to encourage teachers to prepare classes, interact with schools and students, self-study and guide students; to encourage students to engage in tailored study, self-study and group study; to encourage schools to evaluate teachers, organize and manage classes, assess students and analyze teaching results all through the use of internet. Information technology can maximize a teacher’s influence, help and outreach. Full-time long-distance education and massive open online courses (MOOC) are expected to gradually close in the education gap between rural and urban areas and substantially promote education equality in China.

In February 2016, a special IT-based poverty alleviation through education project kicked off in Sichuan Province. The project covers 88 poverty-stricken counties in four major areas in Sichuan and aims to connect students in these places with higher-quality classroom teachings and special tailored classes. It encourages the use of innovative teaching methods by letting students engage with the internet in classrooms often, making IT education the new normal. In the meantime, high-ranking schools are also encouraged to use the Internet to share their classroom teachings with nearby schools.

Thanks to such efforts in recent years, so far 87% of China’s primary and middle schools have gained access to Internet, more than 80% are equipped with multimedia classrooms and a total of 60 million students and teachers have engaged in Internet studies and teachings. The country also plans to use big data technology to enhance management of the education system and comprehensively elevate the education standard of poverty-stricken regions. The IT-based education reform will eventually rewrite China’s education and ultimately establish a student-centric system.

In order to achieve these goals, teachers in China must adapt accordingly. For example, IT ability should be added as a subject to cultivate teachers and evaluate school performances. Trainings integrating IT application with teaching methods should also be provided so that teachers will practice IT-based education regularly in classrooms.