江苏留学网

Vocational education has registered a high of 37.8 percent annual growth in terms of funding received so far this year. Du says it is mainly because of the large number of users and their increasing willingness to learn and pay for what they are taught.

For instance, Su Bo, 32, has been working in a property company in Nantong, Jiangsu province, for seven years. In September, he registered for an online course in engineer supervision in the hope of qualifying for a job promotion and raise.

"Online courses make it possible for working staff like me to study during our spare time via livestreaming and offline videos," he says.

Du of iResearch says: "Interactive livestreaming is now widely accepted in online education."

With the advancement in artificial intelligence, online education will see more room for development, she says. For example, virtual teachers and automated yet interactive programs might become the order of the day.

Yu Minhong, CEO of New Oriental Education and Technology Group, said at a forum in early October in Beijing that one-third of AI applications in the future will be in education.

"Education will be one of the fastest-growing industries and worthy of investment in this age of AI," he said.

A number of Chinese companies have already started mapping their future moves in the AI-backed education sector, including Shanghai-based Yixue Education Technology and leading Chinese AI voice technology supplier iFlytek, which is based in Hefei, Anhui province.

It's not roses all the way, though. Challenges are beginning to cause concern about the market.

For one, finding an adequate number of qualified teachers is not easy. The Ministry of Education forbids teachers working at primary schools and middle schools from offering paid lectures after school hours. For another, there are no well-defined regulations in place yet.

Cost is another major challenge. According to He Qiang, founder of online tutorial service provider Sanhao.com, a large number of online education companies face a high cost of acquiring a customer, which is between 3,000 and 10,000 yuan.

"If such companies cannot control the quality of their classroom, they won't be able to recover their cost for a very long time," he says.

shijing@chinadaily.com.cn