Special English teacher training coming to rural China

The Jack Ma Foundation and English education platform VIPKID recently announced in Beijing a cooperative plan to support teacher training in impoverished areas of China.

The two sides have worked together and offered training and quality English teaching resources for teachers at five pilot schools in Yunnan, Guizhou and Gansu provinces through an online platform.

They plan to extend such support to more than 200 schools in the following two years, and meanwhile, through the same platform, enable teachers and students in these areas to communicate directly with English teachers abroad.

Mi Wenjuan, founder and CEO of VIPKID, said high-quality teaching content and good teachers are key elements in resolving the education problems facing China's impoverished areas.

"We hope that through the cooperation and the online platform, teachers and students in remote areas can have fresh English teaching materials and could conduct English conversations directly with teachers overseas," she said.

She added that the company announced an investment of 100 million yuan ($14.5 million) in January to help broaden the vision of children in remote and impoverished areas of China by offering more English teaching resources.

Hu Zhiqiang, general manager of the Education Network Platform under the Jack Ma Foundation, established in October to boost educational equity in China, said the cooperation will help reduce the short supply of English teachers in underdeveloped areas of China.

"The cooperation would benefit English education in these areas by bringing the needs of teachers and students and the English education resources at VIPKID together," he said.