“Internet Plus” which is a Chinese action plan seeking to drive economic growth by integration of Internet technologies with manufacturing and business technologies. In China, the most successful application is the online shopping, which brings a lot of benefits to E-commerce platform. Meanwhile, the internet and the education field is booming as E-learning is a large potential market to develop. Applying O2O model to traditional education through the internet creates a new learning style, which could revolutionize the education market. There are already various kinds of products aiming at different people to teach IT skills, language or K to 12 subjects online. There is also a lot of in-service education services for professionals performance in the market. More learning through play products should be promoted for parents who have children under 4 years old. K to 12 education products in the market should constantly improve their quality in order to raise the parents’ confidence. At the end, the interaction problem is the weak point of the whole market, which should be soon solved in order to enlarge the market.
E-learning services are widely accepted
High standards professionals are often using their free time for self-study, indeed, e-learning has received a wide success since its introduction in the market. The size of online education market reached 3.75 billion RMB in 2014 and it won’t stop increasing since E-learning is attracting more and more professionals. There are abundant resources including IT skills, language, and professional related courses, which is essential for professionals who have fierce competition in their career life. Famous online professional education platform JIKEXUEYUAN (in Chinese 极客学院) who focus on IT skills provides students with videos, question bank, as well as forums. Numerous forms of resources are offered to students, with a full range of help and device. Compared to traditional education, E-learning saves people’s time on the transportation which is a real selling point for professionals who lack of time.
Learn-through-play is preferred by parents for pre-kindergarten education
Chinese parents have great expectations for their children and there is a common idea among Chinese parents to “Don’t let your child lose from the starting line”, this statement encourages the pre-kindergarten education. However, the experts’ suggestions on teaching the kids with fun are highly followed by the Chinese parents. Indeed, they are seeking for learn-through-play products via E-learning platforms. Products having heavy educational purpose are not appropriate for little children because it can obliterate children’s curiosity and their own learning instinct. Investigation shows that 20% of Chinese children have depression when they grow up because of the high amount of learning class during their pre-kindergarten period. Thus, learn-through-play products are demanded to create an interesting environment for both parents and children. The pre-kindergarten education website WANGQUBAOBEI has gained wide popularity among young parents. It offers videos of nursing rhymes with lovely cartoon characters as well as children stories. Children can also play educational games with parents to improve their perception of the surroundings environment.
Rising confidence of parents is crucial for k-12 education
There are, already a lot of K to 12 online education products in the market which makes the choice, even more, difficult for parents, the quality of these products is not that trusted by the Chinese parents. Thus, in a recent study from Daxue, we could highlight a rising confidence from Chinese parents. K to 12 education is important for students, as they face two major exams during the K-12 period: the Senior High School Entrance Examination (ZhongKao) and the National Higher Education Examination (Gaokao). Therefore, parents are willing to pay more and their interest on e-learning services is higher. In order to provide their children with the best faculty in such a critical moment of their life. Traditionally, parents send their children to classes opened by professional institutions who can invite famous teachers from key senior high school to give lessons with good and rich experience. When it comes to E-learning product, parents will also qualify them from various aspects. Do teachers come from key schools? Do they have long experience in K to 12 education? Do courses contain all the content needed for the exam? Parents will definitely choose E-learning for their children as long as the products meet all their demands. Moreover, online K to 12 education should also classify their products and diversify it, in order to cater students with different level and background. Suitable and appropriate grade will offer students better learning. Accordingly, products with good teachers and planned courses will raise parents’ confidence in online K to 12 education.
Solving interaction problem is the key to expand the market
The main point of all the E-learning products is that students cannot raise questions and get answers in time, which is the main reason for those who don’t apply on E-learning courses. Thus, creating an interaction environment on the E-learning platform is the key to expand the market. An investigation shows that 45% people hope to get quick answers while they are studying online and 36% of the people hope to have a remote communication with their teachers and classmates. Timely discussion with others is an effective learning method as students cannot only get answers for their own questions but also know others opinions. Some brands have already set up forums for students to discuss, but it cannot resolve the problem completely since there is still has a delay of time. Interactive course with chat session will resolve the problem, online schools proposing this offer has a huge potential.
If you enjoy reading this article and you’d like to know more about other industry in China, contact us!
