Recently, The Information and Communication Development Department of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and The Science and Technology and Information Technology Department of Ministry of Education jointly publicized the list of "5G + smart education" application pilot projects in 2021. After independent declaration, local recommendation and expert review, 109 projects entered the publicity list. Around the pilot work, Guangming Daily reporters interviewed Xie Cun, director of the Information and Communication Development Department of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and Lei chaozi, director of the Science and Technology and Information Technology Department of Ministry of Education.

01

Why do the two departments jointly carry out the application pilot of "5G + smart education"?

Xiecun: The CPC Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to 5G development. The general secretary Xi Jinping put forward clear requirements on actively enriching 5G technology application scenarios. Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has thoroughly implemented the decision-making and deployment of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, took the lead in focusing on the application needs of key livelihood fields, and made steps to promote the large-scale development of 5G applications through pilot and demonstration. This is the responsibility of our information and communication system. Education, as the great plan of the country and the CPC, is an important cornerstone of national rejuvenation and social progress. The pilot is jointly organized by Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and Ministry of Education. Ministry of Education attaches great importance to it. The two departments closely cooperate with each other to fully promote the two-way empowerment, integration and innovation of 5G and education, push forward the reform of education model and the reconstruction of education ecology, and support the high-quality development of education.

Lei chaozi: with the development and application of 5G, cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence and other new technologies, the integration of information technology and education teaching continues to deepen, and the development of education has also entered a new stage of digital transformation. In 2018, The Education Informatization 2.0 Action Plan listed the innovation development action of smart education as one of the eight actions. The plan proposes to actively carry out innovative research and demonstration of smart education, and promote the reform of education model and ecological reconstruction under the support of new technology. In July 2021, Ministry of Education and other five departments jointly issued The Guidance on Promoting the Construction of New Infrastructure for Education and Building a High-quality Education Support System to push forward the construction of new infrastructure in the field of education focusing on network, platform, resources, campus, application and security, and consolidate the digital base for the development of smart education. Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and Ministry of Education jointly launched the application pilot of "5G + smart education", which aims to select a number of best practices and solutions for educational informatization using 5G network, so as to push on the faster and better development of smart education.

02

What is the overall application status of the "5G + smart education" application pilot project?

Xie Cun: the application pilot of "5G + smart education" has fully mobilized the forces of all parties involved in government, industry, university and institution, showing the characteristics of "departmental coordination, upper and lower linkage, industry and university cooperation, and cohesion innovation".

Local communication administrations, competent departments of industry and information technology and competent departments of education cooperate closely and organize carefully, and all kinds of schools and scientific research institutions at all levels actively declare and act quickly. A total of 1,244 projects have been collected nationwide, covering 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government), 5 cities specifically designated in the state plan and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. We encourage all parties to declare in the form of consortium. Most pilot projects have diversified participants and prominent characteristics of collaborative innovation. Schools, audio-visual education centers, scientific research institutes, industry associations, telecom operators and educational information enterprises actively form an innovation consortium for cross-border cooperation. Nearly 70% of the projects reported by various schools at all levels have become the main battlefield of the application scenario. Most projects focus on exploring integrated innovation and multi-scene integrated applications, and classroom interactive teaching has become a hot scene of 5G applications.

03

What role will the "5G + smart education" pilot play in building a high-quality education system and promoting education modernization?

Lei chaozi: with the advent of the era of intelligence, people's demands for education have changed from standardized and large-scale school education to more flexible and personalized lifelong education. The "5G + smart education" pilot adheres to the application orientation, takes the demand as the traction, focuses on the key links of education and teaching, provides new opportunities to solve the hot spots and difficult problems of education. It mainly plays three roles. The first role is to promote the reform of education and teaching mode, expand the sharing scope of high-quality educational resources, improve the quality of education, and push forward the fair and balanced development of education. The second role is to effectively support the deepening of education evaluation reform and promote the modernization of education governance system and governance capacity through the in-depth application of education big data. The third role is to stimulate the vitality of supply side reform and demand side application, build a new education ecosystem supported by information technology, promote the large-scale and normal application of smart education, and improve the supply capacity of educational services.

04

From the perspective of this pilot work, what are the current application needs of 5G in the field of education?

Xie cun: This pilot application project mainly focuses on the general and personalized needs of 5G in education and teaching. There are three main aspects as for the general needs. The first is to build a 5G education network across campuses and regions, support the sharing of multi-party information resources, and expand the teaching coverage from multiple campuses and networks in the same city to one school across multiple provinces. The second is that 5G is widely used to connect campus facilities, resources and teachers and students, fine campus management will be achieved and the construction of smart campus will be deepened. The third is to use 5G technology to carry out large-scale distance teaching and multi-disciplinary virtual simulation experiment training teaching. In terms of personalized needs, a number of distinctive professional applications have emerged, such as 5G + intelligent agricultural pest monitoring, 5G + intelligent robot + VR / AR aviation Museum.

05

What important principles have been made in the exploration and practice of the pilot application of "5G + smart education"?

Lei chaozi: the development of smart education should always firmly follow the correct direction of cultivating people for the Party and the state, and provide strong support for the construction of a high-quality education system. In the exploration and practice of "5G + smart education" application pilot work, we mainly grasp the following three principles. The first principle is to adhere to education orientation and all-round development. To put people first and develop education to the satisfaction of the people, we should implement the fundamental task of building morality and cultivating people, and strive to cultivate people of the times who are worthy of the great task of national rejuvenation. This is the basic and important guide in the process of China's education modernization. All explorations, efforts and creations made in the practice of wisdom education should ultimately be attributed to talent training. The second principle is to adhere to application first and technology as support. We should focus on the application scenario of 5G in education, explore from multiple directions, strengthen and extend informatization from the application level, give full play to the role of 5G in promoting the digital transformation of education, actively explore the development of smart education, and push forward the application of educational informatization to a new height. The third principle is to adhere to data empowerment and security management. To build a new form of smart education, we should pay attention to improving the educational data management system, establish a data standard system, improve the ability of data security, and ensure the security of massive data and personal information generated in the process of education, teaching and management.

06

What are the overall considerations for promoting the in-depth development of "5G + smart education" in the next step?

Xie Cun: At present, it is a critical period for the large-scale development of 5G applications. The 5G Application Sailing Action Plan (2021-2023) defines the tasks and objectives of "5G + smart education" in the next three years. In the next step, we will take this pilot work as an opportunity to further promote collaborative innovation in all links of the industrial chain, create a number of model projects for the integration and innovation of 5G and education and teaching, timely summarize experience, practices and results, establish benchmarks and models, and strive to promote the application of "5G + smart education" from small-scale exploration to large-scale implementation.

Lei chaozi: Through "5G + smart education" application pilot project, we will actively explore the innovative application of 5G technology in the field of education, so as to provide new ways and means to solve educational problems and promote educational reform and development. In the next step, under the guidance of the implementation of digitalization of education strategic action, we will pay close attention to the effect evaluation and experience summary of the deployed pilot areas and units, strengthen process management and targeted guidance, focus on solving key core problems, form development highlights, set development benchmarks and play a leading role.