Xinhua News, Beijing, August 7th - On the 7th, the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (hereinafter referred to as the “Shanghai Education Commission”) and TAL Education Group announced a long-term strategic cooperation focused on the "Education Informatization 2.0 Construction." It is understood that both parties will cooperate in promoting education informatization with the adherence to the principle of "student-centeredness," exploring future collaborative education models between teachers and technology, and using informatization to promote the modernization of education in Shanghai.

Li Yongzhi, Deputy Director of the Shanghai Education Commission, and Zhang Bangxin, Founder and CEO of TAL Education Group, jointly signed the strategic cooperation agreement.

Li Yongzhi, Deputy Director of the Shanghai Education Commission, believes that unlike Education Informatization 1.0, Education Informatization 2.0 reflects the expectation of revolutionary changes. The essence is to promote a qualitative leap in education. He stated that the current school-centered education system was established 300 years ago to meet the needs of Western industrial society. Achieving education informatization means establishing a new concept, system, and content of education adapted to the information society in the information age. This requires a top-down design and reform, performing an all-around educational revolution guided by new concepts.

In his keynote speech, TAL Education Group Founder and CEO Zhang Bangxin clearly defined TAL Education Group as "a technology education company centered on 'smart education and open platforms.'" He stated, "TAL Education Group's goal, ambition, and ideal is not only to become an offline training organization but to become a data-driven technology education company."

"Smart education and future schools are the key development directions for TAL Education Group. Our cooperation goal with the Shanghai Education Commission is to jointly research and construct classrooms and schools oriented towards the future and modernization based on informatization. We will use this opportunity to focus more on in-school and classroom settings, leveraging smart education to assist the Shanghai Education Commission in carrying out related practice explorations and strategic R&D, thus actively promoting the informatization of classroom teaching and the normalization of informatization in school education,” said Zhang Bangxin.

It is understood that TAL Education Group invests billions of yuan annually in R&D in fields such as the internet, artificial intelligence, and brain science to assist and solve practical needs in teaching and research within the education system. This has become an essential direction in TAL Education Group’s exploration in recent years. TAL Education Group has already cooperated with local governments in regions such as Zhenjiang in Jiangsu, Xiong'an New Area, and Song County in Henan to explore smart education by combining characteristic course resources, teaching resources, and teaching and research services with TAL Education Group’s educational applications.

Reprinted from Xinhua: https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1608135576689846958&wfr=spider&for=pc