An overview of e-learning in China: History, challenges and opportunities

The Chinese government has attached great importance to the development of e-learning since its emergence in the 1990s. As a consequence of the implementation of a series of policies, China has made significant achievements in the e-learning arena with respect to infrastructure construction, production of resources, academic education, non-academic training, and education for disadvantaged groups. However, due to the constraints of China’s traditional culture, information literacy, and educational mechanisms, challenges have emerged in the implementation of e-learning that need urgently to be addressed. As e-learning in China continues to grow, major research areas such as students’ and teachers’ perspectives on developments in e-learning, teachers’ pedagogical capacity and ongoing professional development in e-learning settings, and the production of more convenient and useful e-learning resources, are likely to be topics of continuing research interest.