Ge Daokai (right), director-general of the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Education, talks with Zhong Tianhua, vice president of Alibaba, on Aug 7. [Photo/ec.js.edu.cn] 

Jiangsu Provincial Department of Education signed a strategic partnership agreement with Chinese tech giant Alibaba to deepen the two sides’ cooperation on smart education on Aug 7. 

Alibaba has played an important role in helping the East China province accelerate its drive to integrate digital technology into classrooms across the region and improve access to online learning resources. 

The two sides originally partnered on the project in 2016. Since then, Jiangsu has risen to second on the Chinese government’s league table for the provision of digital resources in elementary education.