Could online classrooms be the answer to teacher shortage in rural China?
Lessons give pupils confidence and access to subjects such as English, says educator who teaches music to children across the country over the internet
One of the biggest barriers to educating China’s rural poor is finding enough teachers willing to take up jobs in remote and impoverished areas, but a group of tech-savvy teachers in the east of the country say they may have a solution.
Over the past 4½ years, Wang Fei and her colleagues have incorporated online lessons into their students’ timetables in various subjects including English, which was not previously offered at their middle school.
Students attend the lessons at school, where a projector screen is set up so they can see their teachers and classmates in other schools in real time via an online learning platform.
Wang was one of 100 educators presented with an award by the Jack Ma Foundation for her contribution to education in rural China at a ceremony on Sunday night in Sanya on Hainan Island. The award winners each received 100,000 yuan (US$15,500).
Jack Ma Yun, executive chairman of Alibaba Group, told the gathering that the foundation would work with more than 80 Chinese business leaders to promote the development of boarding schools in the countryside, where an estimated 60 million “left-behind” children – youngsters from poor families whose parents work in cities away from home – live. Alibaba is the owner of the South China Morning Post.
At Wang’s school in Huantai county, Shandong province, online lessons are now part of the schedule. The free classes are taught by experienced teachers, many of them based in cities, on a voluntary basis. The programme – run by the CCtalk online learning platform, from Shanghai-based company Hujiang EdTech – is open to all primary and middle school pupils in China with internet access.