From August 19th to 22nd, the 2019WWEC Educators Conference was held in Shanghai. Experts and scholars from various fields such as domestic and foreign capital, academics, education, and government and business gathered together for multi-level and multi-dimensional exchanges. At the closing main forum on the 22nd, Bai Yunfeng, President of TAL Education Group, delivered a keynote speech on "Building a More Open Education Platform".

Bai Yunfeng, President of TAL Education Group, delivers a keynote speech on "Building a More Open Education Platform"

Key Points:

· TAL Education has always adhered to two educational concepts: promoting "more equitable and high-quality education"; nurturin g students to provide more suitable education.

· Technological advancements are the key to better inclusive education. Leveraging technology magnifies the depth, width, and height of high-quality educational resources, potentially reducing the cost of accessing these resources, enabling the transmission of high-quality educational research, courseware, and teachers to impoverished areas, providing them with the opportunity to access high-quality education resources.

· Looking to the future, our goal is to imbue children with integrity, kindness, and honesty, providing them with a compass to understand and explore the world and the ability to think independently and attain happiness.
 

Bai Yunfeng shares TAL's open platform strategy
 

Speech Transcript:

Today, I would like to share the development and growth of TAL Education, hoping to help principals, as well as educators across the country who are exploring the education industry.

I. Elaborating on the Industry

Since its establishment in 2003, TAL Education has witnessed the robust growth of educational enterprises, focusing on technological advancements to drive progress in education institutions.

For example, in the past 10-15 years, we have managed Xueersi, dividing it into front-end and back-end administration parts and implementing the following:

First, unified teaching and research standardization. A systematic approach to teaching and research is carried out through a large backend and small frontend.

Second, university recruitment and strict systemization. Teachers are an important factor in the teaching system. TAL Education recruits, trains, manages, and trains teachers according to strict standards.

Third, word of mouth marketing and direct branding. Franchise and direct operation follow different development paths. Under the standardized operations of quality and service in the education industry, quality variance for franchise may be the biggest bottleneck for expansion.

Currently, the internet provides the education industry with more infrastructure and technological tools, creating an opportunity to radiate high-quality educational products through the power of technology.

Therefore, TAL Education has been investing in AI since 2013, using technological leverage to drive iterative models in the education industry. However, in the past two years, we realized an issue. For the education industry, national and market demands are continuously rising, but the educational institutions supplying reforms are far from meeting societal needs. The education industry is analogous to a vast and brilliant space, so we are contemplating whether it is possible to help more peers in the industry achieve excellence by carrying our own long board and connecting with them, and this is the strategy of TAL's open platform.

II. Elaborating on the Enterprise

Xueersi's development process has not been smooth, experiencing many twists and turns. Founded in 2003 and initially operating offline educational services, Xueersi moved out of Haidian in 2007. In 2008, Xueersi opened its first branch in Shanghai. After 7 years, in 2010, Xueersi was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In 2013, the group was officially renamed TAL Education.

In 2013, we established the "Future Star". So far, more than 1,400 CEOs from the education industry and regional principals have joined this mutual learning public welfare organization, exploring a better future for education together.

In 2017, TAL Education realized that the supply side of the education industry was far from meeting the demand for reforms. So we started to open up some teaching and research content to connect with peers. In 2018, we officially launched the "Future Magic School" business, opening up to the entire education industry.

We believe that educators must follow the national development outline and direction. So TAL Education has always adhered to two educational concepts.

First, we are committed to promoting "more equitable and high-quality education".

Second, we aim to nurture students and provide more appropriate education. We strive to eliminate differences based on location, wealth, and other factors, allowing Chinese families to receive equal and homogeneous educational opportunities.

So, how to eliminate the extreme disparities between regions and ensure that both rich and poor families have the opportunity to enjoy high-quality educational resources, allowing children to study more efficiently within the basic learning time, and have more time to embrace nature and achieve all-round improvements in morality, intelligence, physical skills, art, and labor, is a question facing all education practitioners.

Technological progress is the key to resolving the inclusiveness of education. The technological leverage amplifies the quality of educational resources and may reduce the cost of accessing high-quality education resources, thereby transporting high-quality educational research, courseware, and teachers to impoverished areas, enabling them to access high-quality education resources.

Therefore, TAL Education has pioneered the "dual-teacher" model, separating lead teachers from assistant teachers and using technology as a lever to remotely deliver high-quality educational resources. This is a fundamental proposition for improving the quality of basic education in China.

In Xixia District, Yinchuan City, Ningxia, TAL Education has provided a remote foreign teacher dual-teacher system. Under the joint guidance of foreign teachers from Harvard and Yale, as well as local assistant teachers, the children are very pleased throughout the entire learning process and enjoy this approach. This is one of the possibilities we are exploring.

III. Elaborating on the Future

There are three key words to consider in the development of enterprises today:

First, technology. With the continuous advancement of technological barriers, the education industry can deliver more high-quality educational resources to more children in a better way, eliminating or partially eliminating extreme disparities between regions.

Currently, TAL Education has a research and development team of over 5,000 people, with R&D funds exceeding 1 billion yuan. TAL Education has established joint laboratories with domestic and international universities such as Tsinghua University and Stanford University, and has reached cooperation with Beijing Normal University in the fields of brain science and cognitive science. In 2017, TAL Education established the AI Lab, the Silicon Valley R&D Department in 2018, and the first postdoctoral research workstation in the education industry in 2019.

Second, openness. The superimposition of tools and technologies requires a high-density talent pool. As an outstanding institution in the industry, we have the ability and willingness to open up high-quality educational resources, such as teaching and research cloud, live broadcasting, dual-teacher systems, etc., to assist more educators in various regions.

TAL's extracurricular education service brand Future Magic School has formed many connections with the industry. TAL's open platform has also cooperated with 1,107 educational institutions, covering 234 cities and regions, serving over 20,000 offline students and accumulating over 10 million hours of online classes.

Third, cooperation. From the perspectives of the supply and demand sides, all educational enterprises together fall short of meeting the Chinese families' demands for high-quality educational content and teachers in basic education. I believe that the industry should work together to achieve efficient division of labor in the education industry chain, giving opportunities for educational institutions to improve teaching effects and services on their platforms.

The industry is entering a process of standardization, health, and sustainable development. The development of many educational institutions is faster this year than last year, and the entire industry is constantly improving. Providing high-quality educational content and services is a great direction for meeting the development of Chinese basic education, and education is also an essential link for China to lead the world.

Therefore, whether you are an education industry practitioner, a manager in the education regulatory department, or a teacher working diligently, I believe that everyone shares a common goal: to enable children to possess integrity, kindness, and honesty, have a compass to understand and explore the world independently, and have the ability to achieve happiness.

Thank you all!