Online education a new frontier in China

TutorGroup, established in 2004, is the largest English language-learning institute by number of active students. CEO Eric Yang said online education will become the dominant trend in the future, especially in language learning, and offline will be replaced by online sometime soon.

"Online technology provides students the ability to not only learn what they want, but in a style that best fit their needs," Yang told China Daily via email. "Online education uses technology to bring education on a global scale, while maintaining - and even optimizing - the interaction experience that students need for the best learning experience.

"The education system is shifting from being teacher-centric to student-centric. The modern student demands high quality, flexible, personalized learning. The current bricks-and-mortar education system is simply not equipped to do this at scale," Yang said.

Despite all the advantages online education seems to bring, Yu Minhong, CEO of the New York-listed New Oriental Group, doesn't think online learning will overtake offline schools to become the dominate education force.

"Online education may work for adults willing to learn something new and to improve themselves. But most of the young students in China are passive learners, who can only take in knowledge when teachers are around," Yu said.

According to Yu, education in the future will be a combination of online and offline, interdependent with each other.

Yu said his group will soon launch a new product to embrace the Internet and mobile-Internet era.

It's rumored New Oriental and Tencent Holding Ltd, China's largest Internet company, will set up a joint venture in online education. Both of the companies declined comment.

It's too early to tell what changes online education can bring to people's daily life.

It has already altered the way offline education operators do business.

After 100.com unveiled their plan to provide some free TOEFL and IELTS training sessions, New Oriental said in mid-April that it will provide some training sessions for China's national College English Test level 4 and level 6 without charging.