Building Educational Resilience through Online Education: China’s Lessons Learned from the Education Response to the COVID-19 Crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic has exerted a never-before-seen influence on educational systems worldwide. Tightened policies in response to the outbreak and spread of the pandemic led to mass school closures, forcing hundreds of millions of students to study from home. During the pandemic, international organizations such as the World Bank and UNESCO agreed on the need to strengthen the resilience of education systems. These organizations aimed to equip students for continuous learning in the face of major risks by addressing the educational challenges associated with the current pandemic, possible future pandemics, and other social risks (UNESCO 2020; World Bank 2020). Online educational systems and resources are seen as important tools that can shape the resilience of educational systems. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the Chinese government has followed the general policy of “suspending classes without stopping learning” by adopting a large-scale online educational system that serves 200 million students (Zhang et al. 2020).

How prepared are Chinese students and teachers for online learning? How well are online education systems functioning? What are the problems encountered? These are the questions addressed by this special issue. We systematically present research from China on students’ and teachers’ experiences of online teaching during the pandemic. As mentioned by the authors of the articles in this special issue, the outbreak of the pandemic, which represented an unexpected disaster and posed unprecedented challenges, allowed for the social experiment of implementing mass online education and shaping educational resilience. This issue’s summary and discussion of the online teaching and learning experiences of Chinese teachers and students can help us understand how to make educational systems more resilient by improving online education systems.

The first article is contributed by Daguang Wu and Wen Li from Xiamen University. The authors note that the pandemic has facilitated the first large-scale use of Internet technology for teaching purposes in China’s universities. Their core concerns are identifying online teaching models, measuring teachers’ and students’ preparedness for online education, and evaluating how effectively relevant teaching platforms are used. A research team led by Wu surveyed 13,997 teachers and 256,504 students at 334 colleges and universities in March 2020, at the outset of the pandemic. The core findings of the survey were as follows. First, the surveyed teachers and students both reported that they were underprepared to engage in online education. Specifically, the data analysis indicated that nearly 80% of the teachers surveyed had not conducted online teaching before the outbreak of COVID-19, and 56% of the students surveyed had not participated in online learning. Moreover, although more than 80% of teachers had been trained in online teaching and had acquired certain online teaching skills before the outbreak, more than 62% of the students surveyed had not been trained in online learning. Second, the survey indicated that teaching platforms were crucial to online teaching. These platforms are mainly providers of educational content and vehicles for education. The key findings reported in this article show that the government’s investment since 2012 in building Massive Online Open Course teaching platforms has helped lighten the enormous burden imposed on universities by the COVID-19 pandemic to provide online education. However, the key findings also indicate that government-provided online educational resources remain insufficient to satisfy the considerable demand for online education. This resource insufficiency has attracted numerous industry providers, resulting in the fragmentation of online teaching platforms during the pandemic. Even worse, the varying levels of use of the many technology platforms have plagued online teaching, e.g., by reducing teaching efficiency. For example, the authors report that teachers in the surveyed universities used a total of 66 online teaching platforms, with each teacher using an average of more than two platforms and a given teacher potentially using multiple platforms simultaneously. Third, although the survey respondents asserted that teaching platforms were stable and related technical services met the most basic teaching needs, teacher–student interaction was deemed unsatisfactory. For example, students’ experience scores for teacher–student interactions—such as analyzing student learning behavior through electronic data, online educational testing and grading, and online classroom discussion—were relatively low. Fourth, by summarizing the model and characteristics of online teaching during the pandemic, the authors argue that online teaching follows the traditional offline teaching model—although online education by definition represents a change to the traditional educational model. Fifth, based on the results of the survey, the authors conclude that the most prominent problems with online teaching are poor network speed and stability, the incompatibility of some teaching content with online teaching, and students’ weak independent learning ability.

The second article is contributed by Weiping Wang and Wen Li. The data originate from a survey led Daguang Wu, who led the research project mentioned in the first article of this special issue. However, unlike the previous article, this article focuses on inequality in the online learning experience of university students, primarily regional inequality. The article describes and preliminarily examines the factors that contributed to disparities in the online learning experience of 249,764 students at universities in eastern, central, and western China during the pandemic. Three findings are particularly notable. First, students’ satisfaction with online learning and learning effectiveness were highest in eastern China, followed by central China, and finally western China. This trend is consistent with the pattern of distribution of higher education resources and the disparity in the quality of higher education in eastern, central, and western China. Second, the students’ satisfaction with online learning was higher than their evaluation of learning effectiveness. The authors speculate that this result is attributable to schools’ practice of “student consumerism,” whereby teaching activities cater to students’ preference for low learning difficulty. Finally, the authors emphasize that social interaction, technology platforms, and the environment are the most crucial factors influencing the online learning experience, which is also an important driver of regional disparities. Similar to Daguang Wu and Wen Li, the authors further mention the influence of learners, instructors, and course content and design on the learning experience.

The third article is contributed by Weidong Fu and his colleagues from Central China Normal University. The authors view the mass trend of online education triggered by the pandemic as one of the world’s largest informational experiments. The authors argue that mass online education may offer China an unprecedented opportunity to upgrade basic educational facilities and improve information literacy for teachers and students. Unlike the authors of the previous two articles, Fu et al. focus on the online teaching of primary and secondary school teachers during the pandemic. Their primary concern is teacher preparedness. A team led by Fu et al. surveyed 7,111 primary and secondary school teachers in China in 2020. Their initial conclusion from the data was that teachers have the basic digital literacy to deliver online education. For example, over 60% of the teachers surveyed had participated in online teaching training, nearly 76% had selected course resources, practice tests, and assignments from the resource library, and nearly 34% had designed interactive activities during online teaching. The authors further note that nearly 30% of the teachers sampled were not in favor of online teaching. These teachers believed that mastery of technology and a changing mindset are critical to online education. The authors’ second concern is related to online teaching platforms. Similar to the first article of this special issue, they subdivide online platforms into content providers and vehicle providers. They argue that the main content providers for primary and secondary schools are state-funded public service platforms for open educational resources. Nearly 64% of the surveyed teachers used teaching resources and offered classes on these platforms. Meanwhile, the private sector represents a considerable proportion of vehicle providers. For example, more than 50% of the teachers surveyed stated that they used mass communication tools, such as QQ and WeChat for teaching. The authors’ third concern in this article is related to the main models and content of online teaching in primary and secondary schools. They argue that these models are diversified. In the dominant model (used by over 56% of the sampled teachers), students watch lectures on a national or regional platform in a uniform manner, and teachers answer questions and provide personalized tutoring. Approximately 29% of the sampled teachers provided live lectures to the entire class, and roughly 21% chose to record lessons for students. A typical online class lasted for 40 min, and the dominant teaching model was the lecture method. Based on data analysis, Fu et al. identify several challenges faced by online teaching. First, online teaching platforms fail to meet demand, an issue teachers attribute to the lack of distance learning monitoring and the failure to remotely supervise classroom discipline and obtain timely feedback from students on their mastery of knowledge. Furthermore, the platforms cannot operate smoothly because of the overwhelming number of users. Second, online learning resources lack personalization and are limited to featuring single resource types. Nearly 70% of the sampled teachers asserted that online platforms as content and carrier providers can only partially meet teaching needs. Third, teacher–student interaction was deemed insufficient, feedback from students was delayed, and procedures for the assignment and acceptance of homework were deemed unsatisfactory. Finally, based on the survey findings, Fu et al. assert that teachers’ online teaching ability is weak and information literacy is low.

The fourth article is contributed by Yiling Hu and her colleagues from East China Normal University. The authors’ survey involved 12,171 principals and leaders, 42,239 teachers, and 340,461 students at 5,542 urban and 6,629 rural schools. The authors note that nearly 90% of the schools surveyed had implemented online teaching in all classes during the pandemic. They focus on several types of disparities in online teaching. First, they consider disparities in online teaching between urban and rural schools. By examining differences in software and hardware for online learning, the authors show that most students in urban and rural areas have the basic hardware, network, and space conditions for online learning; however, students in rural schools lag behind their urban peers in these basic conditions. Second, the authors identify disparities between urban and rural schools in the form of online teaching. The authors report that although both the urban and the rural schools in their survey used live streaming and online discussion, urban schools spent more time on live streaming, whereas rural schools spent more time on online discussions. Most urban schools were better adapted than rural schools to live streaming, during which teachers and students communicate synchronously in a “live” classroom, which generates better interactivity. Given the relatively low use of live streaming platforms during the pandemic, certain rural schools have failed to optimally adapt to live streaming, a brand-new teaching form, resulting in poor synchronous interactivity. Third, Hu et al. describe disparities in the online teaching ability of teachers in urban and rural schools. The lesson preparation process mirrors disparities in the focus and implementation of curriculum resources, information-based teaching strategies, and instructional design between urban and rural schools. Urban schools were found to have more course resources than rural schools. Rural schools were less concerned than urban schools about informational teaching strategies and teaching design, reflecting the disparities in the informational literacy of rural and urban teachers. Fourth, the authors describe disparities between urban and rural schools in initiative support and experience in online teaching. Rural schools were found to receive less special funding and support for the professional development of teachers than urban schools did. Fifth, the authors describe disparities between urban and rural students in the effectiveness of online learning, interest in online learning, information literacy, and mental health. They highlight the higher scores for learning effectiveness and interest of students in rural schools compared with those in urban schools. According to Hu et al., students in rural schools were more exposed than their urban peers to traditional class teaching before the outbreak of COVID-19. The authors speculate that rural students experienced novel forms of teaching, such as TV educational courses, online recordings, and live streaming during the pandemic and therefore were more enthusiastic and motivated than their urban peers. However, the authors note that these results are based on students’ subjective feelings. Based on the comprehensive analysis of the school questionnaire results, rural schools were less effective than urban schools, and students in rural schools had more technical difficulties in online learning and lagged behind their urban peers in the mastery of new technologies. Students in urban schools had higher mental health scores than those in rural schools because they had more family support and timely psychological, learning, and technical assistance from their schools. Because students remained at home for online learning during the pandemic, they lacked social interaction and were more prone to anxiety. The authors of this article report that although both urban and rural schools provided psychological counseling to varying degrees, students’ psychological stress was not relieved. Interviews revealed that a combination of factors, such as disparities in family boundaries, the digital gap, social stratum, cultural distance, and social values further aggravate rural students’ emotional issues, particularly the loneliness of left-behind children in rural schools during the pandemic.

The fifth article is contributed by Yijie Wang’s team from Hohai University. The authors surveyed 13,176 primary and middle school students in Jiangsu, a developed province in China. The authors focused on the impact of social strata on students’ access to family support and learning effect. The team classified family support into “hard support” (i.e., hardware equipment) and “soft engagement” (i.e., the educational engagement of students’ families). Roughly 93% of the parents in the elite class reported that their children had sufficient equipment for online learning, compared with 88% in the non-elite class—a gap of nearly 5%. Regarding educational engagement, nearly 80% of the parents in the elite class indicated that they were able to provide assistance for their children’s homework, compared with ∼69% of the non-elite class—a gap of 11%. Based on these findings, the authors argue that elite students have greater online learning effectiveness than those from non-elite families. In the correlation analysis section, the authors highlight that the elite class provides students with more hardware support—including smartphones, computers, and higher-quality networks—for online learning and is more actively involved in its children’s online education. This explains their finding that students in the elite class delivered better online learning results than their peers from non-elite families.

The sixth article is contributed by Yongyuan Wu. This article systematically describes China’s online educational model and experience during the pandemic. Given the country’s relatively centralized management system, Chinese educational systems can make timely top-level plans and respond to events in a systematic and timely manner. The article mentions that as of September 23, 2020, the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, in conjunction with relevant departments, had issued a total of 81 education policies/action plans. More than half of these policies and plans were issued within a month of the onset of the pandemic, and four guiding policies/actions were issued on the same day. The Ministry of Education and the education departments at all levels quickly coordinated efforts to develop online teaching resources, including curriculum resources and free and publicly available psychological support hotlines, to ensure that students would “never stop learning even when classes are suspended” during the pandemic. To prepare for the launch of online teaching, the ministry and associated departments further organized online thematic training for teachers on subjects including distance learning and IT capabilities. Online learning platforms, funded by public funds, offered an abundance of courses to students. For example, in basic education, learning platforms, such as the national cloud classroom have cumulatively provided more than 180 million primary and secondary school students with more than 3.1 million online on-demand courses. As of May 11, 2020, 2.073 billion views of and 1.711 billion visits to the national cloud classroom for primary and secondary schools have been recorded. In this article, Wu emphasizes that online education encountered several challenges during the pandemic. First, online teaching course resources were insufficiently diversified and systematic. Second, teachers’ conceptual understanding of and ability to implement online teaching were deemed inadequate. In particular, the author asserts that teachers’ lack of awareness of online teaching and the simple “copying” of offline teaching methods in the teaching process compromise the effectiveness of online education. Third, teachers were underprepared for online teaching. A lack of experience and literacy in online teaching prevented teachers from mastering the methods and skills of online teaching and caused problems in course design and teacher–student interaction. Fourth, students were insufficiently engaged in the classroom and had inadequate initiative. Fifth, online teaching highlighted the “information divide” between urban and rural areas and “group differentiation.” According to statistics from Xi’an Jiaotong University, over 94% of urban students but only 75% of rural students in China have access to the Internet at home. More than 90% of urban students have computers, compared with merely 37% of rural students. Despite the declining disparity in the spatial distribution of high-quality educational resources driven by the informatization of China’s educational system progresses, urban students in primary and secondary schools are more information-literate than their rural peers. Students in poor rural areas, particularly those with weak self-learning ability and poor self-discipline, are at a disadvantage compared with their urban peers, intensifying the disparity between urban and rural students.

What specific insights can be gained from the above articles? Digital capacity is important for creating resilience in educational systems. To improve the resilience of educational systems, digital capacity must be built in at least the following ways. First, it is important to invest in building both hard and soft information infrastructure. Hard infrastructure involves student and teacher access to necessary teaching equipment, such as computers and networks. “Soft infrastructure” mainly refers to the content and carriers of online teaching. In China’s basic education system, the government remains the main provider and builder of online educational content, which represents the foundation for the majority of the county’s online educational content. China’s carrier providers are more diverse. Second, the digital literacy of administrators, teachers, and students should be improved, and the literacy gap in particular should be eliminated. The research in this special issue indicates that although China has advanced considerably in terms of hard infrastructure, the digital literacy of administrators, teachers, and students in rural schools continues to impose a major constraint on the effectiveness of online education. For example, teachers’ attitudes toward online teaching greatly affect their willingness to adopt online teaching when necessary. Educators’ training in online teaching also greatly affects their readiness to teach online. In addition, the research reported in this issue reveals a common problem: although most teachers have received online teaching training, they have failed to fully master online educational models because of the acute nature of online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, educators have simply “copied” and “transferred” offline teaching to the online environment, in the process diminishing the effectiveness of online education. The lack of teacher–student interaction and the inability to detect learning effectiveness and improve student motivation remain the core bottlenecks in online education.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ailei Xie

Ailei Xie is a professor at the School of Education, Guangzhou University.

Fengqi Ma

Fengqi Ma is a professor at the School of Education, Guangzhou University.