BEIJING -- China launched a national online learning platform to keep studies going for its hundreds of millions of primary and secondary students who have been confined to their homes amid the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Jointly launched by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Feb. 17, the free learning platform covers the 31 provincial-level regions on the Chinese mainland.

The platform has been upgraded to further enrich its resources and promote the all-round development of students, featuring 10 sections, including epidemic prevention education, moral education, mental health education, classic literature and digital teaching materials.

With the support of China's telecom and technology giants, such as China Telecom, China Mobile, Alibaba, Baidu and Huawei, the platform can host 50 million students simultaneously.

More than 870 million visits had been paid to the platform's website as of March 19, the China Education Daily said in a Monday report.

China has postponed the start of the new school semester as part of its epidemic control efforts and students have turned to online courses for nearly two months.

As the epidemic has basically been curbed in China, some regions have resumed school classes or announced dates for starting the new semester, most of which prioritized graduating middle and high school students.