Education in China

A couple of years back, China banned all coaching centers. The reason was exactly what many in India complain about – the competition to get into the best colleges is fierce, thus the rise of those coaching centers. But those centers are hard to afford to many plus they are only in the bigger cities. That means the kids of the already well off, urban folks are the only ones with a real shot of making it to the best colleges and then to better economic prospects.

 

While that reasoning makes sense, China (like India) has another problem, as this article explains. The quality of education in schools is not good. And their education too is exam oriented, not concept oriented. Teachers are gauged based on exam results, so they are incentivized to teach to the test (and in poorer areas, to cheat). The quality of education isn’t the same everywhere – the richer provinces do much better. Kids in the poorer provinces drop out of education much earlier. The per capita teacher count is far lower than Western countries. The classroom size is often very high, far more than what the rules prescribe.

 

All that sounded just like India, right? So how does China plan to address this? By digitizing education in general and focussing on AI based education in particular. Associated measures including subsidizing network charges for schools and incentivizing the development of digital education products.

“(China must) deeply integrate AI technology into every aspect and stage of education, teaching, and administration.”

A quote from China’s education minister.

 

This approach is possible because China, like most of the developing world, has a “popular positive AI sentiment”, unlike the West which obsesses over Terminator style outcomes.

“China’s push to digitize education reflects both a technological ambition and a social imperative to close the gap between rural and urban students.”

 

Will China succeed in this attempt? Only time will tell. But since that need and problem is common across most developing countries, the (non-West) world will watch China closely on this front.

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