Recently, TAL Education Group's "Xueersi AI Teacher Mandarin Teaching System" project was selected as the only education informatization project from China to be shortlisted among the top five for the 2019 UNESCO Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa ICT in Education Prize.

The UNESCO ICT Prize, established in 2005, recognizes outstanding individuals and organizations worldwide that innovatively apply information and communication technology (ICT) to enhance teaching, learning, and overall educational performance. The criteria for this prize include innovation, impact, and scalability.

In 2019, the prize mainly focused on projects utilizing artificial intelligence to develop education, innovate teaching and learning methods, improve learning outcomes, empower teachers, and develop educational services, while promoting the inclusive and equitable use of AI in education. The selection committee was composed of five internationally recognized experts.

From 113 projects nominated by 58 countries, TAL's "Xueersi AI Teacher Mandarin Teaching System" project was selected, marking an international recognition of TAL's high-quality and innovative application of "AI + Education."

In 2018, Xueersi Online School, a subsidiary of TAL Education Group, custom-developed the "Xueersi AI Teacher Mandarin Teaching System" for Zhaojue County in the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province. This system included a bilingual learning module for preschool children in both Yi and Mandarin languages, deeply integrating technologies such as speech recognition and speech evaluation to provide intelligent assessment and real-time correction of children's pronunciation, helping them to learn Mandarin effectively.

Yi children using the mobile version of "Xueersi AI Teacher Mandarin Teaching System" for learning

For a long time, due to geographical factors, the economy of the Zhaojue area has been relatively underdeveloped, and local education has been struggling. Inability to speak Mandarin and lack of quality educational resources have become major barriers for local children in communicating and learning with the outside world.

To address these local challenges, Xueersi Online School and the TAL Foundation jointly launched the "Xueersi AI Teacher Mandarin Teaching System" project, providing free Mandarin teaching services and quality course resources to all students in Zhaojue County. This initiative marked the first use of AI technology to promote Mandarin in ethnic minority regions.

Currently, the "Xueersi AI Teacher Mandarin Teaching System" has benefited nearly 80,000 students and more than 2,000 preschool and primary school teachers, significantly improving the Mandarin proficiency of local preschool children, easing the shortage of teaching staff, and promoting the poverty alleviation and sustainable development of women and children in the region. This project laid a foundation for children in ethnic minority areas to enjoy equitable education and escape poverty.

For this project, UNESCO recently awarded TAL Education Group the 2020 Mobile Learning Week "AI and Inclusion" Innovative Demonstration Project Certificate, recognizing TAL's contributions in using AI and big data to improve literacy, protect minority languages, and promote inclusivity.