On October 17th, Kuaishou (Kwai) Big Data Research Institute released the “2019 Kuaishou Education Ecosystem Report”, which systematically reviewed Kuaishou’s education ecosystem for the first time.

The report shows that Kwai’s platform has generated as many as 200 million educational short videos so far. The average number of daily views has exceeded 2.2 billion, and the average number of daily “likes” has exceeded 60 million.

The revenues of China’s short video market grew by over 7 times to 46.7 billion yuan (US$6.6 bn) in 2018. It’s expected to continue the fast growth and exceed 100 billion yuan (US$14.16 bn) in 2019. TikTok (Douyin) and Kwai (Kuaishou) are the two leading short video platforms in China.

Short video has become a critical driver for e-commerce in China.

It is worth mentioning that there are now over 990,000 creators of educational videos on Kuaishou, more than doubled compared to last year. The educational live streaming platform now has over 100 million daily audiences. They contribute a daily average total viewing time equivalent to about 734 years and leave an average of over 20 million comments daily.

This is indeed a surprising result for many people. In the field of education, there are few products that can built such a solid product infrastructure step-by-step, while covering such a large and geographically diverse population.

Moving in stealth mode, Kwai’s education ecosystem has become a major player impossible to overlook. Now, the entire online education industry is facing huge pressure and begin to embrace short videos.

There exist huge market demands in the four vertical fields of EQO (Essential-qualities-oriented) education, agriculture education, vocational education, and subject-oriented education.

The average daily views of short videos on EQO education has exceeded 1 billion, with over 3.6 million “likes”. The contents range from calligraphy, hand-painting, Chinese folk art, to life hack, dancing, and photography.

The average daily views of videos on vocational education have exceeded 900 million. The contents range from repair & maintenance, driving, to cooking and fashion design.

Learning is a common need of Kwai’s users. Their enthusiasm for learning is high no matter their genders nor ages:

• Users under the age of 18 are not only interested in contents related to their school subjects, but also in computer science, anime hand-painting and gymnastics;
• users aged 18-30 prefer photography; users from 30 to 45 years old love agricultural machinery, calligraphy and saxophone;
• users from 45 to 60 years old focus more on investing and planting flowers; users over 60 years old like tea, chess and folk art.

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Research from a recently released HSBC report entitled “The Value of Education: Higher and Higher” reveals how parents’ attitudes towards and spending on their children’s education varies across the globe. In particular, it looks at parents’ attitudes towards university education abroad and online education, as well as their spending and investment in education. The following is a review and summary of core data and conclusions.

This research also shows that Chinese parents are among the most committed to their children’s education when compared to parents around the globe. They are among the most willing to support their children’s education up to the post-graduate level and spend as much on average as parents from several much wealthier nations.

In addition, the report reveals broad trends regarding parents’ attitude towards education abroad, online education, and education spending globally.

Chinese parents are broadly committed to ensuring a good education for their child; to this end, they are much more likely than average to prepare financially for significant education expenditures, consider post-graduate education for their children, and pay for private schooling. They are among the most willing to send their children abroad for university, as well.

Attitudes towards online education

Global attitudes towards online education are mixed, with most parents simultaneously expressing some willingness to consider an online degree because of the cost savings and increased flexibility…

… And expressing caution at the potential downsides of such degrees, including the lack of interaction with peers and professors, limits on networking opportunities, and questions about suitability for some subjects.

Nonetheless, most parents, in the end, say that they would consider an online university degree for their child, with the highest percentages coming from large developing economies such as India, Indonesia, and China.

Beyond school: Educational experiences

Beyond a normal university education, many parents would consider allowing children to engage in other related experiences, such as study abroad programs, school exchanges, or work placement programs.

Attitudes towards education abroad

By far the most common such “experience”, however, is allowing a child to go to a full university program abroad, something widely considered by parents globally, most especially in the developing world.

Many parents are concerned about the costs of such an education, not just monetary but also in terms of safety and homesickness, but against this, they must weigh benefits including allowing their children to acquire new language skills, experience working abroad, and greater confidence and independence, as well as exposure to foreign cultures.

Many parents have specific universities in mind when they consider sending their children abroad; in evaluating these schools, they most frequently consider the quality of the teaching and education, the universities’ prestige, and post-graduation employment opportunities.

Additionally, parents who send their children abroad for university have clear preferences for certain countries; the top four common destinations are the four developed nations of the Anglosphere, with the US in the lead. Closely trailing them are other major developed economies, with Germany, France, and Japan among them.

Despite the doubts discussed above, a majority of parents in developing countries would consider sending their children abroad for university. Meanwhile, parents in developed nations are less likely to want their children to go abroad for university, possibly because they have fewer qualms about the quality of the education available at home.

Majors, post-graduate education, and careers

Parents show a strong preference for majors such as medicine, business, finance, and engineering, which seems linked to their belief that education is a route to better employment prospects. Chinese parents are most likely to prefer business and finance majors, with a full 20% responding in favor.

Parents’ belief in the value of education in the job market is especially strong regarding post-graduate education; over 90% of Chinese parents think post-graduate education will provide better job opportunities to their children, and 95% would consider sending their children, among the highest percentage of any nation’s parents.

Educational Spending

Globally, the average parent spends some US$44,221 on a child’s education, split roughly evenly between primary, secondary, and university education.

Average spending among Chinese parents is very close to the global average, despite China being much less wealthy on average than the other countries surveyed. For example, Chinese parents were apt to spend more on their children’s education than parents in Australia, the UK, Canada, or France, and only marginally less than those in the US and Taiwan.

Meanwhile, culturally Chinese Hong Kong topped the list, with the average parent spending more than US$130,000 on a child’s education.

Beyond their finances, parents also make other sacrifices to support a child’s education, including reducing their “me-time”, cutting back on holidays, and changing their working styles and times.

Private education is also very common, especially in the developing world, and most especially in the Sinosphere. Parents in developed economies are less likely to pay private tuition, preferring public schools, but parents in developing economies may send their children to private school in the absence of a strong public school option.

In China, public schools are generally of reasonable quality, but parents pay for private tutors and after-school programs to give their children a leg-up in the cutthroat competition for university spots and jobs.

Education: An investment in the future

Most parents invest in education for their children because they’re optimistic about their children’s prospects and want them to have a better life than they otherwise would.

In part because the competition is so fierce, developing world parents have high aspirations for their children, that they will beat the average and have a better future than their peers.

Investment in education, for these parents, is a way to help their children achieve this brighter future.

Total revenues of China’s online education market reached 45.84 billion yuan (US$6.64 billion) in the first quarter of 2017, with an increase of 64.9% YoY or decrease of 4.8% QoQ according to data from the research company Analysis.

Children education is the most active section in China’s online education market with close to 170 million monthly active users in Q1 2017.

Baidu’s Zuoyebang is the most active online education mobile app in China with 43.589 million MAU in March 2017. It helps the primary and secondary school students with their homework.

China’s online education market is estimated to exceed 162 million users in 2019 from 90 million in 2016; and, this market will grow to exceed 269 billion yuan (US$39 bn) in 2019 from 156 billion yuan (US$22.7 bn) in 2016. 

Online language education market in China exceeded 30.2 billion yuan (US$4.39 bn) with over 17 million users in 2016 with an increase of 26.9% YoY. It’s estimated to grow to 51.68 billion yuan (US$7.51 bn) in 2019 with over 30 million users.

Also read: China Online Learning Market Overview for 2016