Online courses offered to global students

BEIJING－China's universities and colleges will offer a number of high-quality courses in English to global students via an international online teaching platform.

The international platform is still under construction, and two online teaching websites, www.icourses.cn and www.xuetangx.com, are the first to be included in the program, Wu Yan, a higher education official from the Ministry of Education, said at a video conference held in Beijing this month on the construction of the program.

The Ministry of Education will set up a committee to promote the construction of the platform and curricula while establishing an expert team to guide the operation and management of the platform, Wu says.

"For more than 40 years of reform and opening-up, China has been learning a lot from the world in developing its higher education," Wu says. "Now, we want to actively contribute to the world's higher education through massive online teaching and learning practice."

The construction of the platform comes at a time when the novel coronavirus pandemic has forced the suspension of classes globally.

UNESCO released distance learning solutions for schools around the world and recommended 27 free learning applications and platforms globally, including those recommended by China's Ministry of Education during the coronavirus outbreak.

More than 950,000 teachers from 1,454 universities or colleges in China had been teaching 942,000 online courses as of April 3, attracting 1.18 billion registrations by students, according to the Ministry of Education.

China's universities and education departments, such as Tsinghua University and the education department in northeastern Heilongjiang province, have shared their experience with overseas peers pertaining to online teaching and learning.

Dozens of online courses offered by Chinese universities have joined global online education platforms like edX.org and coursera.org, according to the Ministry of Education.

In addition, the Ministry of Education also plans to host a world conference about MOOC, or massive open online course, in Beijing this year and proposes the establishment of the World MOOC Alliance to promote the global development of higher online education.

Xinhua