What are some of the Online Education Issues in China?
Due to the Corona Virus in China, the government is now suggesting schools set up online education so that teachers can work from home and students won’t get too far behind in their studies. Unfortunately, most online education is set up for Chinese teachers, not foreigners who also teach in China.
This all said, the idea has become a huge challenge for schools, teachers, owners of the schools and mostly the internet. I have done some research regarding the number of schools in China and for elementary
schools alone, there are more than 100,000 schools. This doesn’t include middle schools, high schools, and universities, private or international schools, which means there are far more than 500,000 schools in China.
Speaking with some schools who have managed to set up online, they are having huge problems because of the amount of users. Let me explain. Teachers are either speaking to their students one-to-one or recording lessons from their homes, or schools are trying to stream the lessons in real-time to the students directly. The government hasn’t instructed kindergartens or nursery schools to participate in this because those students lessons aren’t as important as the upper grade levels. However, for the above mentioned schools who are supposed to participate, there are literally millions of students countrywide, so the internet is having a lot of problems because of the load.
Even though China has one of the largest internet systems in the world, with all the newest technology, they would still require a much larger system than currently set up to teach all the children in China online. With that all said, education centres across China have already started to stream their lessons online because their privately owned centres were closed down completely, and lack the cash to keep their business doors open for the students.
This whole idea was to have the students continue studying and put teachers back to work, even if it meant that the earnings were less than normal. However, without the internet, this idea might come to a sudden stop and not only for the education industry, but for everyone who uses the internet in China.
I think they are going to have to come up with a better idea. At the moment, the school year could be saved, depending on the length of time this virus continues. If we are able to control it within the next month, schools could re-open and the students could return to class. They may have to extend the second semester into the summer vacation period for a short time, but it would most likely solve the internet issues schools are experiencing.
