University exam preparation with artificial intelligence in China

Many companies are trying to put artificial intelligence into classes and exam preparation to enhance the current education system.

In China, most parents believe that getting into a good university is a sure guarantee of a successful life later on. That is also the reason why they accept the cost and spend a lot of effort to prepare their children for the annual college entrance exams. Now, however, instead of depending on the teachers' ability to help, many parents are becoming more confident in the support of robots.

According to SCMP, Yixue Education is one of the growing software companies in this area. According to the co-founder of Li Haoyang company, robotics "help students understand themselves better."

In October, in a practical competition between Yixue's artificial intelligence emulator and teachers with an average teaching experience of 17 years, the machines showed that they were capable of improving. Good test scores are significantly better than humans. It was organized in the form of a competition in Zhengzhou, Henan Province with 78 students, under the supervision of the local education office and Internet analytics company iResearch.

AI can better support students than traditional teachers.

"The traditional way of teaching in classes is very low because each student's weakness is different," Li said. "Many students waste time re-learning the knowledge they have mastered, because teachers want to convey it to people who don't know it yet. But even so, those who learn slower still may be left behind because teachers cannot afford enough time to help them ".

According to him, the learning method that Yixue uses for AI is to identify each student's weaknesses, then adjust the tutoring to reinforce these content. And this software is geared towards serving students from elementary school to high school. The company also intends to introduce to university students next year.

Yixue is just one of a number of new businesses competing and scrambling to market the attractive market share in China's online education industry, which is predicted by iResearch to grow by more than 70% compared to last year to 269, 26 billion yuan (about US $ 41 billion) in 2019. There are many other training assistance programs in China that use AI, including teaching languages ​​like English.

After 4 days of intensive training, the students using Yixue's software showed that the math test score increased by an average of 36.13 points, compared with 26.18 points from the tutors. Ha Nam, the locality chosen to organize the test, is the province with the highest competition rate in China. In 2017, more than 860,000 people took the university exam but only 10% went to "key" universities, the lowest rate in the country.

College exam preparation in China.(Photo: Beijing Cream).

Mr. Li said the company had received 270 million yuan (about US $ 41 million) of funding in mid-2017 and the next step was to expand to Hong Kong and Taiwan, then Southeast Asia and finally Europe and America. He said the software could be adapted to students worldwide regardless of language.

The company's customers now have more than 100,000 paid users, with about 10,000 spending over 10,000 yuan (about 1,500 USD). Some students may spend up to 50,000 yuan when participating in many courses. Gross profit margin is currently around 80% to 90%.

Yixue recently contacted Hanson Robotics , the company behind the project, to create robots that look like humans to interact better with users.

"The kids really face a lot of difficulties , " Li said. "By building this system, I hope to release the pressure on them."