In 2021, the Bureau implemented the ‘Three-Year Action Plan for Zhongshan Smart Education’ to further advance the implementation and exploration of smart education. The plan focuses on the following areas:

1. Implementation of the ‘Love Seed’ demonstration school project
2. The ‘Multi-technology Integration’ smart education demonstrationschool project
3. The ‘High-quality Resource Center’ project

The Bureau is dedicated to creating a top-notch education resource centre, offering excellent educational materials and services for students and teachers. The electronic textbook app's usage rate is consistently over 85%, driving effective adoption of digital learning resources. The 'Zhongshan Smart Education Project (Phase One)' launched in 2022 aims to establish a smart education platform, enhancing adaptable and diverse learning approaches for Zhongshan students.

The ‘Love Seeds’ teaching model experiment is part of Guangdong Province's education reform initiative named ‘Promoting Compulsory Education Teaching Reform with Information Technology’. This teaching model adopts the concept and theory of ‘Internet + Education’ and incorporates three classroom teaching components: self-directed learning, interactive exploration, and thematic expansion. These components are supplemented by four teaching strategies to cultivate students' abilities to learn autonomously, collaboratively and innovatively so as to achieve precise teaching by teachers and precise learning by students.

In response to the national initiative to improve the information technology application capabilities of primary and secondary school teachers, the Bureau has established a steering committee to enhance the informationalisation capability of subject teachers, principals, and research and training teams. This holistic approach strives to promote the integration and innovative development of information technology in education and teaching, ensuring a further improvement in the quality of education and instruction. From 2020 to the end of 2022, the effort produced tremendous results, with over 95% of teachers passing the related assessment, and a substantial collection of high-quality teaching resources has been accumulated.

1. Training Resources - Establish a training course resource repository to encourage co-construction, sharing, and application of resources
2. Demonstration and Leadership - Organise demonstration teachers and principals to lead the development of educational information technology across the city.
3. Interdisciplinary Integration - Design interdisciplinary integrated teaching resources and demonstration schools to enhance teachers' abilities in using information technology across different subjects.
4. Research and Training Teams - Recruit outstanding teachers with strong information technology application capabilities to form research and training teams for implementing school￾based training.
5. Experience Promotion - Summarise the experiences from pilot programmes and promote excellent implementation models to all schools across the city.
6. Competition for Progress - Encourage teachers to participate in competitions related to information technology application to upgrade their technological skills.

According to Mr Sun, the process of implementing information technology is not without challenges, and the digital divide is one of the major one. To address this, the Bureau promotes sharing of electronic educational resources between resource-rich and needy areas. They also enhance access to electronic educational equipment and provide teacher training to ensure effective utilisation of innovative teaching resources.

Due to the involvement of a substantial amount of students' personal data and information in electronic education, the Bureau has implemented stringent security measures and policies to safeguard data security and confidentiality. By enhancing platform security measures, the Bureau has established comprehensive data protection systems and regulations, as well as increasing safety awareness among students and parents.

Although e-Learning undoubtedly provides more room for development, possibilities, and choices in teaching, traditional education still plays an essential role in the education landscape. To strike a balance between the application of e-Learning and traditional teaching, the Bureau is committed to promoting their integration, allowing e-Learning and traditional education to complement each other.

Mr Sun said, ‘While Zhongshan faces various challenges in promoting education informatisation, suitable measures and policies have been taken, resulting in the resolution of problems and further advancement of education informatisation.’

Each city in the Greater Bay Area brings unique strengths to education technology. Mr Sun encourages collaborative efforts for sharing successful experiences and resources among cities to foster diverse and vibrant regional growth. This includes creating educational platforms, facilitating teacher visits and exchanges, and supporting training to harness regional advantages.