It’s no secret by now that 2020 was a good year for online education. Helped by widening lockdowns, China’s educational technology (edtech) market has grown 118 per cent from US$22 billion in 2018 to US$48 billion in 2020. Such growth is impressive but facilitated by the temporary shock of the Covid-19 pandemic as well as user acquisition measures like free subscriptions. With these offers now expired, schools reopened, and new regulations on live tutoring, many companies are not expecting their dramatic user uptick to last and it’s causing some to shift gears. One year ago, the general consensus among both the students and teachers we talked to was similar: online tools were an emergency tool of last resort. Students dropped their keyboards as soon as they regained access to offline classrooms. “I don’t use online tutors because my high school is next to a really good tutoring centre,” said Chris Li, a high school student from Suzhou we spoke to. While many prefer offline spaces, teachers have taken note of the new way to reach pupils outside usual class times. Whereas before they gave only homework, they now also ask students to take extra classes online. Students we talked with were divided. “I’m tired and just want to rest at home on holidays. I don’t know how my brain will work during these classes,” said Hui Huizi from urban Gansu. But many also believe it is more effective than homework. “You do not need to wait to go back to school to get the answers and the feedback”, noted Tingting Li from Suzhou. For many students, attending school online during lockdown meant watching pre-recorded lectures on clunky websites or messaging teachers on mobile apps not designed for educational purposes. However, some were optimistic about the prospects for subjects outside the core of maths, history, science, Chinese, and English. Sunny Wei, a high school student in Suzhou, takes art lessons with a professional illustrator through an online platform. She would have preferred offline classes but finds it fun and more reasonably priced. Online classes “can cross geographical differences to give you more access to classes you really want to do,” explains her classmate Chris Li. “In school, we just keep writing papers on the same topics, [but online] I can find other, more vivid information immediately from everywhere in the world.” The pandemic highlighted edtech’s potential to bring expert pedagogy to remote areas as well. “Kids are very flexible,” said Zhang Donglan, founder of One Village, a non-profit that works with left-behind-children in Guangdong Province. “They really like studying online.” Teachers may struggle initially with online learning, but four weeks of training is usually enough to increase their willingness – and their likelihood – of using online tools in regular classes. “If edtech apps put teachers at the centre of their attention, they can succeed and create useful products,” said Zhang. Some projects try to address the problem of lack of IT skills. Pads for Hope is a public welfare organisation aiming to improve rural STEM classes by donating second-hand tablets with uploaded content to schoolchildren. It also conducts short workshops for teachers on how to use the tablets. Sunshine Library tries to address this problem in preschool education by training kindergarten educators to use technology in their teaching. The former executive director of Sunshine Library, Gao Rencheng, believes digital libraries are good for kids, but that the challenge lies elsewhere. “I left Sunshine Library during the pandemic after 8 years working there. I saw a real opportunity in vocational training,” he said. Reliable internet connections in remote areas remain a problem. Zhang recalls that “it was hard for kids to pay attention … especially because the teacher had to reconnect over and over again with the class”. But China’s Ministry of Education is determined to improve internet coverage and is working with the Ministry of Technology to provide every public school with at least a 10-Mbit broadband connection. By the end of 2020, half of all of China’s rural areas were able to access the internet, according to Statista. Ultimately, students remain practical even if urbanites return to offline centres while their rural peers are seeing new pathways online. “My final goal is to pass the college entrance exam,” said Sunny Wei.