With the rapid development of artificial intelligence and information technology, programming education has gradually become an important part of scientific and technological innovation in today's society. As an important subdivision in the field, children's programming education has been chosen by more and more parents and children, and has embarked on the road of rapid development.
As an education brand of A-share listed company Sanqi Mutual Entertainment and one of the members of the education industry of the Chinese Society of Artificial Intelligence, Miao Xiaocheng focuses on providing real-life ** small class programming courses for children aged 7-16, the course content includes children's thinking programming, graphical programming, python ** programming, etc., aiming to help students bring programming thinking into learning and life, improve children's thinking ability, and improve core literacy by providing efficient and interesting programming learning solutions, since its establishment in 2017, The cumulative number of registered students has spread to more than 40 countries and regions around the world. Combined with the development of the programming education industry in recent years, Guan Chunhua, the founder of Miaoxiaocheng, shared the achievements since its establishmentFrom 0 to 1and his own thoughts on the future direction of the industry and the enterprise.
Guan Chunhua believes that in the past 6 years, the education industry has changed very much, the most obvious is the change in policy and capital. Although the double reduction does not directly put forward negative or rectification opinions on programming education, and in principle, it has almost no direct impact on the programming education track, but after the implementation of the double reduction policy, it still has an indirect impact on the programming education track in two dimensionsOne is the competition, and the other is parent and child time.
After the double reduction, many other subject education could not be smoothly promoted, and many companies, including Ape Tutoring, Good Future, New Oriental, etc., have turned their attention to the quality education track to a certain extent. Guan Chunhua pointed out that at present, programming is one of the more attractive keywords. In addition, because today's children, especially those at a young age, are no longer as convenient as in the past, many parents and children have begun to pay attention to quality education after their time has been released.
In addition to policies, capital has also had a great impact on the programming education track in the past 6 years. Around 2017, the programming education track began to rise and gain the attention of capital, and many leading programming education companies had close ties with some well-known investors in the industry. A number of programming education companies, including Miao Xiaocheng, have received a lot of financing, and capital has played a guiding role for various players in the industry.
We are not going to discuss whether the impact of capital on China's education track is good or bad. Looking back, I think that in any case, in a time when capital is relatively hot, players in the industry need to learn how to acquire and use capital. Guan Chunhua pointed out that before 2021, many large players in the industry paid great attention to capital, quickly obtaining funds, making investments, and doing growth. However, after the double reduction, the capital level and the policy level changed almost simultaneously, and financing became very difficult. Affected by the general environment and policies, the capital market is now very cold, and the industry's past rough growth model is unsustainable.
Some public report data show that the market penetration rate of programming education track is growing rapidly. Although Guan Chunhua believes that these specific or ** numbers are not necessarily accurate, as an in-depth participant in the industry, in the process of close contact with customers such as delivery, customer acquisition and conversion, he can intuitively feel that the scale and volume of the entire programming education market are showing a rapid growth trend.
Guan Chunhua pointed outFrom the perspective of consumer participation, parents and students are becoming more and more aware of and involved in programming education, and they show the following three characteristics:First, in terms of megatrends, the penetration rate and participants in programming education have grown very rapidly in the past few years. Second, because students learn more utilitarian and purposeful from the second year of junior high school, the penetration rate of programming education in the younger dimension (first grade to seventh grade) is much higher than that in the older dimension (eighth grade and above). Third, the market penetration rate of first-tier markets, especially in Beijing, Shanghai, and Zhejiang, has shown a high and rapid growth rate in the past 2-3 years – the number of students is already very high, and the growth rate is very fast.
Guan Chunhua found that compared with 2-3 years ago, the penetration rate of the two markets in Beijing and Shanghai has increased by about 4 times, while the market penetration rate in Nanjing and the more developed cities in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong and other provinces has only increased by about 2 times, and the market penetration rate in cities such as Xi'an and Wuhan has increased relatively slowly. Guan Chunhua judged that due to the large number of students in Beijing and Shanghai, the rapid growth rate, programming education may gradually enter a stable period in the next few years, but coastal areas such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong and first-tier cities in the west such as Wuhan and Xi'an may break out again in the next two years, and the development prospects of programming education are more worth looking forward to. In fact, our business is relatively mature and is in a period of rapid development. Our current users are mainly concentrated in super first-tier and first-tier cities, and more and more users will penetrate into second- and third-tier cities in the future. 」
Today, the market penetration of children's programming education is growing very fast. After experiencing the rapid and crazy influx of the capital market in the past 5-6 years, all companies in the industry are now doing refined operations. Guan Chunhua believes that the children's programming industry has entered a period of rapid growth, and the company should grasp the development rhythm of the capital market and consumer marketDo a better job in refined operations to ensure that the company moves forward healthily.
As one of the earliest companies in the industry to do children's programming education, Miao Xiaocheng has been insisting on doing one thing for nearly 8 years since its establishment, Guan Chunhua summarizes it with 4 keywords, that isInOnline, live broadcast, small class size, programming: These 4 keywords are tied. In the past 6 years, policies are changing, capital is changing, company development is changing, and the entire market environment is changing, but what we do has not changed, it is these 4 keywords, and the 4 keywords are the main line. 」
Why does Miao Xiaocheng do ** small class class? Because we insist on believing that the best teaching results are achieved in small classes. Guan Chunhua pointed outSmall class sizes solve two problems:First, the existence of real teachers solves the problem that the teaching effect of AI classes and large classes is not satisfactory to a certain extent, and the second is that the online model solves the problem that it is difficult for offline institutions to ensure the supply of high-quality teachers in all places. The greatest value of the online model is not to solve the problem of diversity on the student side, but to solve the quality problem on the teacher side. 」
Another benefit of the online model is the effect of scale. Since the scale of offline institutions is generally relatively small, limited revenue limits the investment of institutions in teaching and research, teacher training and management. Guan Chunhua believes that the two basic conditions for the management of the teacher team are more high-quality teachers and teaching time. Due to the relatively large number of colleges and universities in Shanghai and Xi'an, the talent density is relatively high, and more and better teacher resources can be reached, Miao Xiaocheng fixed the teacher's teaching center in Shanghai and Xi'an. In addition, all teachers of Miao Xiaocheng are full-time teachers, although a teacher's class time is limited, but because Miao Xiaocheng's teachers come to work every day, the proportion of time spent on training and broadcasting can reach 40-50% of the working time.
On the basis of satisfying the two basic conditions, Miao Xiaocheng has done a lot of work on all dimensions of teacher selection, breeding, and retention. For example, in terms of selection, Miao Xiaocheng believes that many excellent teachers are not trained, but selected, so they are very strict in the dimension of selection, and the current interview pass rate of teacher recruitment is very low. In terms of education, Miao Xiaocheng has its own training system, which is internally called the Athena Training Program, and constantly evaluates teachers from 68 large dimensions and 64 small dimensions. At the same time, Miao Xiaocheng's teacher has a long training cycle, and each teacher will receive three stages of training in the first half of the year after entry, trial class and relative maturity.
With the popularity of concepts such as the metaverse, the children's programming industry has also generally begun to explore offline teaching modes related to the metaverse. Guan Chunhua believes that there is a lot of room for the combination of the metaverse and education and training in the future, and it seems that it is easier to land in real teaching scenarios. Among the multiple links in the marketing, sales, teaching, and service operations of an education and training company, the best way for the metaverse to cut into is the teaching link, that is, to subvert the entire teaching link by changing the teaching products and courseware.
Today's teaching format, both online and offline, is very similar to the form of private schools in China that has existed for thousands of years, with a teacher and several students imparting knowledge in a fixed place similar to a classroom. **Live broadcast is nothing more than moving this fixed scene from the offline classroom to the online live broadcast room. In the future, the biggest role of the metaverse is to transfer the education that has taken place in specific classrooms in the past thousands of years to the real world. Guan Chunhua gave an example of teaching English words about vegetables, which in the past may have been a teacher teaching students to read and write exercises, but metaverse teaching may change the teaching scene of this class, after the teacher spends a few minutes simply teaching words to read and write, he can immediately switch to a vegetable market or supermarket scene to learn.
Guan Chunhua pointed out that since programming education itself is relatively easy to integrate new technologies, in the futureMetaverse technology and AI technology may emerge simultaneously and transform all aspects of education and training companies, which will have a greater impact on the form of education, the company's operating model and even financial model. Therefore, companies in the industry, especially large institutions, need to pay attention to cutting-edge technologies, think more about the implementation of new technologies, and use new technologies to change the teaching and research, teaching effect and operation mode. We are already working with metaverse companies to disrupt the teaching scene, and we are actively learning about AI technology. Of course, in principle, we do not want to use AI alone to create new models, businesses, or startups, but we hope to use AI to optimize existing business operations. 」
At present, programming education needs to solve an exit problem, especially for institutions that mainly do children's programming education, a common difficulty and challenge is how to convey the value of the course to parents and students, so that they can better understand the training effect.
There are three types of exits: strong, medium and weak for children's programming education. Among them, the strongest exit is to participate in competitions and win prizes by learning programming, which is directly helpful for the high school entrance examination or college entrance examination. For example, students can study C++, participate in the Youth Olympic Games, and after winning the award, they can enter the ideal high school through the path of science and technology specialty students and independent enrollment of the school, or enter the ideal university through the strong foundation plan and comprehensive evaluation. In Zhejiang, since programming itself is one of the subjects in the college entrance examination, learning programming can directly improve the score of the college entrance examination.
However, because it is difficult for young students to participate in very competitive competitions, many companies have no way to reach the strongest exit, so they can only take the middle exit, so that children can learn to code and pass the level exam or win a prize in the competition, but the future value of this level certificate or award is not yet clear. Weak language refers to allowing children to complete certain works by learning programming, cultivating hobbies, thinking skills, etc. Not all of these results are visible to the naked eye, and some may be difficult for parents to perceive.
Returning to education itself, Guan Chunhua asks himself three questions when designing courses:What is the educational value of programming for children? How to convey the value that children's programming education should achieve through courses, products, and teachers? How can children and parents experience the effectiveness of teaching? To do business, there must be capital market considerations. To put it simply, enterprises must operate healthily and normally in some ways, and get some feedback in the capital market in the future, which I think is the basic logic of doing business. Although everyone wants to run the business well and do a good job in cash flow, they basically get it back. However, the thinking logic of short-termists and long-termists is different, and the specific implementation in enterprises is also different. 」
Miao Xiaocheng's thinking logic is long-termism, so the most important thing is customer value. Guan Chunhua believes that a long-term education and training company must consider customer value and teaching effect, and the logic of its curriculum design should take into account many points, the first thing is to ensure that the curriculum system can bring real educational value to children, including products, courses, teacher teaching and other content that the company completely outputs and feeds back to customers. 「From the perspective of customer value, the thinking logic of our entire course design is reversed, and the weakest exit has the highest priority. We hope that our courses will be enjoyed by our students, so that they can develop their thinking skills, creativity, logic, and understanding of AI and programming, and have a basic understanding of the future era of artificial intelligence or technology. On this basis, we also hope that children can participate in competitions after learning, which will also help them to go on to higher education. 」
There is a point of view that programming will become a popular discipline like English in the future, and Guan Chunhua agrees:All education systems are for education itself, and children's education is not for the present, but for 20 years from now. The era after 20 years must be an era with a very strong sense of science and technology, AI has been popularized, and artificial intelligence has been implemented in various scenarios such as production, life, entertainment, and consumption. Our education today really wants children to be able to adapt to the era 20 years from now, to be able to create, to master, or at least to understand that era. Programming is not only a basic skill in the era of artificial intelligence, but also can cultivate children's logical thinking ability, imagination, creativity, and other abilities. From this point of view, I think learning to code is a must. 」
Although it is not yet possible to perfectly present and construct the future era of artificial intelligence from today's perspective, Guan Chunhua believes that among all existing subjects, programming must be the closest discipline to the era of artificial intelligence, and will become a more important subject than English.
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