What happened
China’s Ministry of Education launched a nationwide AI-literacy training program for teachers and upgraded the Teacher Development Center on the Smart Education in China Platform, according to 36Kr. The update adds AI-literacy assessment, personalized course recommendations, electronic professional-development portfolios, teaching cases, and collaborative research functions. Teachers can access the center through the platform after logging in, but 36Kr does not independently verify the rollout or describe pricing.
36Kr reports that the upgraded Teacher Development Center went live on October 10, with sections for teaching-quality improvement, master-teacher guidance, collaborative teaching research, and research and training. The report says the redesign reorganizes existing and new resources around teachers’ professional needs, rather than simply adding another course catalog.
The center’s new AI Literacy Zone reportedly includes an assessment covering theoretical knowledge, tool skills, classroom scenarios, and ethical security. Based on the results, the platform recommends basic, specialized, or case-based courses. The reported case materials cover uses such as lesson preparation, classroom teaching, homework evaluation, learning-situation analysis, and subject-specific applications.
36Kr also reports that teachers can access the center at jiaoshi.smartedu.cn or through the Teacher Development section of smartedu.cn, using a Smart Education in China Platform account. The report does not independently confirm access conditions, participation levels, or whether every listed tool is available to every teacher.
The update expands Master Teacher Studios and adds a co-creation teaching research office where teachers can share resources and apply to participate in collaborative research after review. 36Kr presents these features as a progression from individual course consumption toward group-based professional development.
Why it matters
The move links AI-tool access with teacher training, assessment, classroom examples, and peer collaboration. That matters because educational AI adoption depends not only on whether schools can access tools, but also on whether teachers understand their limitations, can apply them to specific subjects, and can evaluate their effects. 36Kr’s report suggests China is building a national distribution and training layer around educational AI, although it provides no independent evidence yet about teacher participation, classroom outcomes, accuracy, or safety performance.
The reported design addresses a practical adoption problem: teachers may receive access to AI systems without receiving subject-specific guidance on when and how to use them. Connecting assessment, recommendations, classroom cases, and peer research could make training more relevant to daily work than general-purpose AI instruction.
The platform also appears to create a centralized channel for educational AI suppliers. 36Kr says that applications from companies and universities have entered the national platform, with some tools available for nationwide trial and others focused on designated base schools. This may increase exposure for vendors while also putting more emphasis on classroom usefulness.
The report does not provide independent testing of the tools, evidence that recommendations improve learning, safeguards for teacher-development data, or results from the AI-literacy assessment. Those omissions limit what can be concluded about effectiveness or educational safety.
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What to watch next
The main questions are whether the program reaches teachers consistently across regions, how the AI-literacy assessment is governed, which tools are available to which schools, and whether training changes classroom practice. Pricing for the platform and its tools is not reported. The practical results of the , collaborative research offices, and earlier AI applications also remain unknown.
Watch for published participation figures, regional coverage, assessment standards, and evidence that teachers’ skills or classroom outcomes improve after training. The report provides none of these measurements.
The platform’s e-portfolio and recommendation features may involve sensitive professional-development data. 36Kr describes the data categories and recommendation goals but does not report retention rules, access controls, audit practices, or teacher consent arrangements.
Availability may differ by tool and school. 36Kr says some earlier educational AI applications were open for nationwide trial while others were mainly for base schools; it does not establish that the same access pattern applies to every new .
Pricing and licensing are not documented. It is also unknown whether the training is mandatory, how completion is recognized, and how the ministry will evaluate AI use in real classrooms.