https://www.icde.org/assets/RESOURCES/report_qingdao_web.pdf
Ms Liu Yandong, Vice Premier of the People’s Republic of China, read a message from Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China, in which he stressed that “in response to the development of ICT, human society has a common key mission to advance educational reform and innovation, to develop a networked, digitized, personalized and lifelong education system, to construct a learning society where ‘anyone can learn anywhere and anytime’, and to develop a large number of “human resources with creativity.” The President expressed China’s commitment to promoting the use of ICT in education and to ensuring all Chinese people can access quality educational resources and learn anywhere and anytime. In particular, China is dedicated to narrowing the digital divide as well as promoting the innovative development of ICT in education in order to promote equity in education. He also expressed China’s willingness to engage in international cooperation and to explore sustainable approaches to the development of education. In her speech, Ms Liu Yandong further outlined the potentials of ICT in transforming education, including (1) overcoming the limits of time and space and providing an effective way to narrow learning divides and promote equity in education; (2) fostering a “two-fold revolution”, meaning transforming both teaching and learning and therefore promoting resource sharing and improving education quality; (3) building “schools without fences” and multiplying learning pathways for EFA goals and lifelong learning opportunities; and (4) converging vast knowledge and resources, and providing an important platform for human civilization to pass on and update across the generations. In this context, she referred to the impressive progress that China had made in the field of ICT in education, which could be summed up as “Three Universal Accesses and Two Platforms”. The “Three Universal Accesses” refer to: (1) universal access to broadband for all schools (74% of schools have been connected to the internet, and 73% of schools have been equipped with multimedia classrooms); (2) universal access to quality resources for all classes; (3) universal access to online learning spaces for all students and teachers (64,000 teaching sites in remote areas have gained access to digital educational resources; 4 million children in the countryside have been provided with access to qualified education in their hometowns. In addition, the National Open University had been able to offer 33,000 online courses). The “Two Platforms” refer to: (1) an educational resources public service platform to create the largest “supermarket of digital education resources” in China; and (2) an education management public service platform to provide a basic database covering all students, faculties, primary schools, secondary schools, and universities, assigning each student a unique enrolment number and providing information on tests and enrolment, students’ archives and study experiences, and employment services. Report of the International Conference on 8 ICT and Post-2015 Education Drawing on China’s experience, she put forward the following recommendations in order to make ICT in education initiatives successful: (1) support top-level design for the national ICT in education strategy, integrate the ICT in education policy into the overall national education development strategies and develop up-to-tenyear corresponding action plans. (2) ensure concerted action by setting up inter-agency coordination teams and through a countrywide network of supporting institutions; (3) expand the channels of participation for all stakeholders, including companies, schools and teachers; (4) promote application-oriented approaches, encourage teachers to innovate teaching practices through ICT, support students’ personalized learning and inquiry-based learning, and make “class-based, regular and widespread” use of ICT the “new normal” of elearning in China. The Government of China had launched its national strategy to harness the Internet, which would accelerate the use of ICT to transform education in China. The vision that the Government of China had set for 2020 was to build an e-learning environment that would ensure universal access to high-quality education resources for all; to provide a digital service system that enables the learning society; and to realize the goal of universal access to broadband internet for all schools at all levels and of all types. Finally, Ms Liu Yandong presented participants with four proposals for seizing the emerging digital opportunities:  Capture the major trends and attach greater importance to the role of ICT in education systems.  Based on human rights and needs of learners, promote in-depth integration of ICT into education systems, and in teaching and learning processes. Stress that ICT is just the means whereas the development of education is the end; ICT cannot be a substitute for teachers. Innovation is needed in the way ICT is used, in order to enhance personalized learning and peer learning between teachers and students.  Strengthen collaboration and sharing of resources, continuously expand the coverage of high-quality educational resources. She called on participants to break down barriers to open information, eliminate digital divides, expand usage and coverage of digital services, continue to optimize regulations and public policies, and enhance the governance of the Internet to ensure the safe, equal and healthy application of ICT.  Stress the principle of knowledge-sharing and move towards a new era that underscores the inheritance and development of human civilization, promoting deep interaction between different civilizations through intercultural platforms empowered by the Internet In the last keynote speech, Mr Yuan Guiren, on behalf of the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, presented ICT in Education as a Driver for Modernizing Education: Practice in China and Lessons Learned. He said that life in the information age had made the world realize that education could not be modernized without applying ICT in education. He Report of the International Conference on ICT and Post-2015 Education 9 pointed out that for China in particular, advancing the use of ICT in education was not only required to respond to the challenges of the present era; it was also the best entry point and focal point to address the major issue of imbalanced growth of education, to promote equity in education, and to improve its quality and efficiency, thus giving it special significance. In 2010, the Government of China released its medium and long term national ICT in education master plans, which stated explicitly that ICT would have a historic impact on the development of education and called for a strong emphasis on ICT in education. Firstly, in order to realize the scientific and orderly development of ICT in education, China has developed a holistic and top-down approach. The Ten Year Development Plan for ICT in Education 2011-2020 was formalized in 2012. It states that by 2020, all adults will have access to quality education resources in an ICTenabling environment, an ICT support service system for the learning society will take shape, and all regions and schools at all levels will have broadband internet access. In order to achieve the vision, the government has put forward its initiative to build “Three Universal access and Two Platforms”, as outlined above. Secondly, in order to considerably enhance Internet coverage and transmission capacity, China has accelerated its drive to upgrade infrastructure, including the China Education and Research Network (CERNet) and China Education Broadband Satellite (CEBSat), which are the two main education networks. At the same time, China is committed to making full use of existing public information transmission resources to accelerate the rollout of Internet access for all schools. Thirdly, in order to enhance the impact of ICT in education and teaching, China has placed a strong focus on developing quality digital educational resources. In particular, China has launched the “one teacher, one quality lesson, and one class one quality teacher” initiative, which has led to the creation of quality digital teaching resources for 3.26 million teachers. In tandem, the Chinese Government has encouraged higher education institutions to develop MOOCs, and private companies to develop basic digital resources to supplement formal educational materials. Fourthly, in order to enhance the modernization of education governance, China has promoted ICT in education administration through the establishment of a national data centre and the implementation of the national service system for education decision-making. China has also set up a national data centre supporting the administration through a unique online identity number for each student, each teacher, and each school. Fifthly, in order to promote the widespread application of ICT in teaching, China has carried out full-scale capacity training for teachers. China has launched a capacity improvement project targeting primary and secondary school teachers’ capacity to use ICT, helping them to integrate ICT into their teaching. ICT training for education administrators has also been stepped up, so as to enhance their ICT leadership capability. Report of the International Conference on 10 ICT and Post-2015 Education Mr Yuan Guiren concluded that China would continue to work to provide equal access to ICT, enhance capacitybuilding for teachers to adopt ICT, and establish ICT-based lifelong learning systems and a learning society. At the international level, China is ready to strengthen exchange, cooperation, and mutual learning with countries around the world in the area of ICT in Education, to ultimately reshape the future of world education and to lay the foundations for global prosperity