Beijing schools drive AI integration in education

Beijing is accelerating the integration of artificial intelligence in education, with AI applications now covering 87.7 percent of the city's primary and secondary schools, officials said at a recent forum.

The initiative aims to make learning more efficient, teaching more effective and student support more personalized. It forms part of a broader strategy launched in 2025 to promote AI education in all primary and secondary schools.

Zhang Yaotian, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Education Commission, highlighted the city's progress at the forum of "AI+Education" held on Sunday before the start of the spring semester the following day.

Achievements include the development of the "Jingwa" intelligent platform, the launch of an education AI application marketplace, and the designation of 50 AI model schools and 32 higher education institutions with exemplary AI practices.

Twenty-five AI innovations in Beijing have been selected by the Ministry of Education as national model applications. "These initiatives have produced practice achievements that are internationally competitive and domestically leading," Zhang said.

AI platforms are already being used in classrooms. The Beijing branch of China Telecom introduced the "Jingxiaojian" platform, which now serves more than 60 schools and 60,000 students and teachers.

TAL Education Group is piloting AI projects to improve learning efficiency and reduce student workload.

The Beijing branch of China Mobile has linked data from schools, families and communities to form a comprehensive "Jingwa" ecosystem.

Beijing No 80 High School, one of the schools designated by the Ministry of Education as an AI education model, signed agreements with Intel and Lenovo in May to open a laboratory in the field.

Ren Weidong, principal of the Beijing No 80 High School education group, said AI education goes beyond using and learning about technology. "Students and teachers must not only gain theoretical knowledge but also apply AI practically and creatively," he said.

For instance, Ren said that if a teacher notices a student has recently been disengaged in class and frequently submits assignments late, the teacher can use AI as a "technical assistant" to access data on the student's learning progress, attendance records and online study hours, enabling quicker, more empathetic and effective offline communication.

"Therefore, we encourage teachers to boldly utilize AI technology to enhance teaching efficiency while also emphasizing the importance of human care and personalized guidance," he said. "Schools should establish guidelines and processes for human-machine collaborative teaching to prevent the misuse or underuse of technology."

Local authorities said efforts will be strengthened to improve security measures.

"Beijing is devoting more efforts to improving the management and evaluation standards of educational AI models and establishing a data life cycle monitoring system to strengthen the security and ethical safeguards of algorithms," Zhang said.