Global EditionASIA 中文雙語Fran?ais
    Opinion
    Home / Opinion / Op-Ed Contributors

    Online tutorials can't replace schools

    By Chen Xiao | China Daily | Updated: 2017-12-22 07:59
    Share
    Share - WeChat

    Xue Zhaofeng, a professor from Peking University, reportedly has more than 170,000 subscribers to his online teaching course and could be making about 35 million yuan ($5.3 million) a year. Xue is only one among the hundreds of online teachers making millions of yuan a month. According to iResearch, an agency specializing in internet data collection, the online education market was worth 156 billion yuan by the end of last year, and it is expected to reach 260 billion yuan by 2019.

    Online education has also found mention in this year's Central Government Work Report, which Premier Li Keqiang delivered to the annual National People's Congress. We can thus conclude that online education not only has huge economic potential, it also enjoys government support.

    Online education has become popular because of the huge demand, and the entire market for providing training for primary and secondary school pupils is worth 800 billion yuan. There are reasons for that. The majority of Chinese parents attach great importance to education, and are willing to pay for extra courses to ensure their children's academic success. And parents who are willing to pay for such courses would also pay for online courses.

    Moreover, intense competition in almost all fields in today's society has prompted people to gather as much knowledge as possible-for which they are ready to pay big amounts-to gain an edge over fellow contestants in exams as well as job interviews. According to 2016 Knowledge Youth Report, co-issued by several websites including guokr.com and 163.net, about 70 percent of online learners "paid for knowledge" last year compared with just 26 percent in 2015.

    Online education has become immensely popular also because it conforms to the so-called 3E principle-everyone, everyday, everywhere-that is, everybody can study everyday everywhere.

    Online education has some economic and other advantages, too. It helps people save time and money. One only needs to pay 200 yuan a year to attend the online courses of even a famous teacher, which is usually one-third of what the same teacher would charge for providing extracurricular lessons in person. To a large extent, it has also addressed the problem arising from a lack of quality education resources. Even an excellent teacher can share knowledge with a maximum of 100 students in a classroom. But the same teacher can teach tens of thousands of students online. This has forced some teachers to change their teaching mode, because the more popular they become, the more money they can make.

    Online education is not without problems, though. Some online courses are to education what fast food is to cuisine, as they simply teach students some easy tricks, instead of imparting real knowledge. Besides, being popular does not necessarily mean a teacher is also good. Some online "educators" are extremely popular yet they hardly teach students anything useful.

    Worse, there is hardly any supervision of online education agencies. The education law requires a person wishing to run an online teaching agency to register at the local education bureau. But a China Central TV report on Nov 17 said quite a high percentage of such agencies are being operated without the education bureaus' knowledge, because they register as technology firms in order to avoid supervision by such bureaus.

    For the healthy development of the industry, education authorities should more strictly regulate the applicants and draft national standards. Also, online education agencies should know they cannot continue offering just simple and smart tricks to students to clear their exams, and instead have to offer quality education to students to succeed in the real world in the long run. And students should realize, no matter how useful online education is, it cannot replace school and college education.

    The author is an associate researcher in education at Beijing Normal University.

    Most Viewed in 24 Hours
    Top
    BACK TO THE TOP
    English
    Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
    License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

    Registration Number: 130349
    FOLLOW US
    亚洲高清无码在线观看| A狠狠久久蜜臀婷色中文网| 欧美中文字幕一区二区三区| 亚洲AV综合色区无码一区爱AV| 中文字幕av无码专区第一页| 麻豆亚洲AV永久无码精品久久| 国产高清中文欧美| 中文字幕亚洲欧美专区| 国产在线精品无码二区| 亚洲AV中文无码乱人伦在线观看 | 久久久无码精品亚洲日韩蜜臀浪潮 | 国产成人亚洲综合无码精品| 国产成人无码免费看视频软件| 一级片无码中文字幕乱伦| 日韩人妻无码精品一专区| 国产成人精品无码一区二区三区| 欧美日韩中文字幕2020| 伊人久久无码精品中文字幕| 波多野结衣AV无码| 91嫩草国产在线无码观看| 人妻无码一区二区不卡无码av| 国产亚洲精久久久久久无码77777| 免费在线中文日本| 日韩av无码中文字幕| 婷婷五月六月激情综合色中文字幕 | 无码内射中文字幕岛国片| 中文字幕无码一区二区免费| 日韩精选无码| 亚洲av无码成人精品区在线播放| 国产成A人亚洲精V品无码性色 | 欧洲人妻丰满av无码久久不卡 | 人妻少妇精品无码专区二区 | 精品无码一区在线观看| 无码人妻精品一区二区三区66| 亚洲人成无码网站在线观看| 亚洲中文字幕无码日韩| 亚洲永久无码3D动漫一区| 一本加勒比hezyo无码专区 | 久久亚洲精品无码AV红樱桃| 精品无码无人网站免费视频| 精品视频无码一区二区三区|