The Ministry of Education of China will Release a White Paper on Artificial Intelligence Education.

Currently, artificial intelligence technology is profoundly reshaping the global education ecosystem. During the Two Sessions, Minister of Education Huai Jinpeng proposed that a “White Paper on Artificial Intelligence Education” will be released in 2025, responding to the challenges and opportunities brought by the technological revolution to education from a national strategic height. DeepSeek and robots have attracted widespread attention both at home and abroad in recent times, which also indicates the effectiveness of China’s scientific and technological innovation and talent cultivation. However, at the same time, it poses a question to us: How should our education respond to major technological changes and industrial transformations? Every major technological revolution and industrial transformation in history has put forward particularly important demands on society, especially on education. Therefore, it is also a major opportunity for educational reform and development.

Last year, at the National Education Conference, the General Secretary emphasized that we should take the development of science and technology and the demands of national strategies as the driving force, focus on enhancing innovation capabilities, optimize the layout of higher education, and improve the mechanism for adjusting the discipline settings of universities and the model of talent cultivation. Just now, the Premier also particularly mentioned this point in the government work report. The Ministry of Education will take formulating and implementing the three-year action plan for building an education power as our basic starting point, and promote comprehensive reforms in higher education. There are mainly three considerations.

First, we will promote innovation in systems and mechanisms. In the current context of technological development and industrial transformation, we will enhance the integration of industry and education as well as the convergence of science and education. We will work with relevant departments to establish an ecosystem and organizational mechanism that facilitates the growth of talents and the integration of innovation and development. At the same time, we will accelerate and strengthen the disciplinary layout in this field in response to industrial transformation. Currently, based on the integration of industry and education, we are promoting the construction of outstanding engineer colleges. We have already established 40 national outstanding engineer colleges and will further expand this number. In this field, we have begun to strengthen cooperation with industries, inviting over 2,000 chief engineers and more than 10,000 enterprise engineers to collaborate with education in talent cultivation. There are over 5,000 practical projects involved. These efforts are crucial for us to intensify the cultivation of talents and promote the integration of industrial innovation and scientific in

novation in talent cultivation. Additionally, we will increase the integration of system innovation and mechanism design. We will carry out evaluation reforms, especially promoting the classification reform of universities. We will encourage universities to leverage their unique characteristics and advantages, and effectively establish and promote the optimization of higher education layout and classification reform in line with national strategic needs and regional economic and social development. On this basis, we will intensify the reform of the evaluation system to better guide universities in cultivating talents in line with national strategies and industrial demands.

Second, this year we will launch strategic actions to accelerate and enhance talent cultivation in line with national strategies and technological development. First, it will be reflected in basic disciplines. As we all know, science and technology have their own laws and scientific paradigms. How to cultivate talents in line with these laws and paradigms? We will strengthen the “Strong Foundation Program” and continue to increase the cultivation of talents in basic disciplines. We will promote the construction of core courses, core teaching staff and core textbooks in fields such as mathematics and computer science, which have both a solid foundation and strategic national demands. Second, we will accelerate and enhance the establishment of important disciplines around national strategic technological development, promote the cultivation of emerging and interdisciplinary fields, and further strengthen talent cultivation in line with the laws of the technological revolution and industrial transformation. For instance, we need to accelerate the layout in many fields such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, new energy and new materials. Third, we will optimize existing disciplines and moderately enhance new ones. At the same time, we will steadily and solidly expand the undergraduate enrollment of “Double First-Class” universities and vigorously enhance vocational education. As you may know, vocational education in our country has made considerable contributions to modern industries and modern manufacturing. 70% of the talents in this field come from vocational education, making significant contributions to the modernization of our country and the development of education.

Third, we will promote pilot exploration and demonstration. We will leverage the innovative momentum of localities and universities, encourage them to take the lead and try out new approaches, and guide and strengthen this work with clear goals. First, we will establish demonstration zones for the integration of science and education and industry and education. Second, we will serve national strategies and regional development. Higher education in any country is a valuable resource for national strategies. How to effectively utilize the accumulated knowledge and technological capabilities in universities to serve regional development and national strategies is a key issue. Therefore, we are promoting the construction of university regional technology transfer and transformation centers, and establishing advanced research institutes based on the first-class disciplines of “Double First-Class” universities to accelerate the integration with regional development. At the same time, we will incorporate important fields such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology into this area to adapt to national strategies and technological development. Through institutional and mechanism innovation, we will establish a unified adjustment mechanism for the three types of enrollment directories for postgraduate, undergraduate, and vocational education, and establish a dynamic monitoring mechanism for supply and demand to better meet national needs. We need to not only adapt but also be moderately ahead and quickly follow the development of our industries.

The technological changes are deeply underway, and there are many new issues in this field. We must both carry forward the past and keep pace with the times, serve the modernization with Chinese characteristics, and build an education power. We will adhere to an open approach to education, cooperate with the international community to run education, serve the construction of an education power, and make educational contributions to national rejuvenation.

Basic education concerns every household and is the top priority for the people. China has nearly 500,000 schools and 230 million students in basic education. The enrollment rate for preschool education has reached 91.1%, and the consolidation rate for compulsory education has reached 95.7%. These figures are comparable globally. As a developing country with a large population, China is among the high-income countries in the world. The gross enrollment rate for senior secondary education has reached the level of middle- and high-income countries. Domestically, in 2021, all 2,895 counties in the country achieved basic balance in compulsory education. 85% of children of migrant workers in urban areas can attend public schools.

This year, we’re going to focus on two things. First, the intensity of education resource allocation and reform promotion. With the development of population change and urbanization, we will promote the model and mechanism of combining cities and counties, and improve the dynamic adjustment mechanism to adapt to the adjustment of social and demographic structure. Second, as you all know, county revitalization has been a hot issue in recent years, and less than 60% of middle school students are in county secondary schools. How to do a good job in county secondary schools? We will thoroughly implement the action plan for county revitalization, take county secondary schools as our key breakthrough for quality and balance, optimize the layout and provision of teachers, and attract and train excellent teachers to county secondary schools. Make the county better serve the rural students.

We will further intensify efforts to promote high-quality and balanced development. First, we will establish basic standards for high-quality and balanced schools, build good boarding schools, and provide better educational environments and capabilities. At the same time, we will strengthen the construction of comprehensive high schools and better coordinate the integration of vocational and general education. It should be said that, just as the previous journalist asked, the current changes in technology and social structure require educational reform, but they also present a rare opportunity for the future development of education, especially for high-quality development. On the other hand, we will increase efforts to improve the educational quality of children of migrant workers, strengthen the construction of the teaching staff, and take the cross-regional exchange of outstanding primary and secondary school teachers and principals as an important part of improving quality. We will also make breakthroughs and conduct practical explorations in some key areas in this field. We will continue to intensify the construction of the national digital education platform, integrate artificial intelligence with education, and China will release an artificial intelligence education white paper this year to provide students with better qualities and abilities for the digital and intelligent era. We will further strengthen the integration of science and technology education with humanities education, and enhance the National Excellent Teachers Training Program and the National Training Program for Teachers, making our contributions to high-quality and balanced development.