CEO: Broad prospects for China's online education

"China's online education sector has broad prospects, with a foreseeable upward trend, as well as closer intimacy and higher loyalty with users," a senior executive of an online English education platform said.

"The number of online education users is expected to hit a new high in the future, and the overall level and ecosystem of this sector will be further improved," Anson Wong, the founder, and CEO of the online English education platform Acadsoc said during an exclusive interview with China Daily.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the compulsory education sector just transformed from offline to online bringing opportunities for the online education sector, which witnessed a surge in market penetration rate and the number of users.

According to the consultancy iiMedia Research, the total number of users of China's online education sector is expected to hit 351 million by the end of last year.

Through the country's effective control against the COVID-19 pandemic, some offline after-school training institutions resumed classes which caused the growth of the online education sector has slowed down. "It's normal but with the moderate rate of customer loss, it shows clients are aware of highly competitive edges of online education in classes accessible, abundant teachers, and satisfactory services," Wong said.

In February, the Ministry of Education said more efforts should be made to rectify and improve off-campus training institutions. Since relevant policies were unveiled, some offline training institutions were halted while some online training institutions were also suspended for rectification.

These policies are beneficial to the development of the education sector, said Wong. On one hand, it could guide the industry steer toward a road of healthy and compliant development, enhancing the overall teaching level; on the other hand, it could help those high-quality training institutions stand out for burgeoning development.

An online education platform should shape its brand image and seek to differentiate its products and services for long-term development, Wong said.

Acadsoc, founded in 2011, is an online education platform providing children with one-on-one online English courses. Each teacher with Acadsoc has a TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) certification.

Last month, Acadsoc and National Geographic Learning reached strategic cooperation. The formerly obtained approval to introduce the Reach Higher program, which could help children extend their global horizon and develop integrated language skills.

According to a report from iResearch, there is fierce competition in the K-12 or kindergarten to the 12th-grade sector with low enthusiasm for the education market for preschool children.

This can be blamed on the small number of newborns and difficulties in quantifying preschool children's learning, Wong said, adding it has represented a big challenge for the product designs of learning courses.