BEIJING, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) — With the rapid growth of online education in China during the COVID-19 epidemic, online and offline merging will become the mainstream of educational development, said the latest report on China's internet development.

A total of 282 million Chinese students have turned to online courses in the first half of this year, further enhancing the country's level of educational development, according to the report issued by the China Internet Network Information Center earlier.

Statistics from the report show that during the COVID-19 epidemic, the number of daily active users of online education has increased from 87 million to 127 million after this year's Spring Festival, up by 46 percent.

The achievements made in the information construction of basic education have laid down the foundation for large-scale online education, the report said, adding that in 2019, 98.4 percent of primary and secondary schools had internet access, and 90.1 percent had multimedia classrooms.

The report noted education departments have actively promoted online learning platforms during the epidemic, which has also contributed to the development of online education.

As of May 11, a national online learning platform for primary and secondary school students has received over 2 billion views.

(Source: Xinhua)