The Learned Man!

Aptech Ranked #1 In Chinese IT Training Market

From an EFY Times report, Aptech has once again grabbed the numero uno position in IT training in China -- for the fourth consecutive year -- according to the CCID report.

Aptech's market share increased to approximately 19 per cent in the year 2005. In the year 2004 too, Aptech, with 14.8 per cent market share, achieved the ranking ahead of other players including Science Institute of Software (with 10.3 per cent market share) and NIIT (7.9 per cent market share).

The top five players of the Chinese IT education and training service market made up for 43.5 per cent of the market share. Aptech (at 18.8 per cent market share) achieved the ranking much ahead of other players including Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) (with 9.6 per cent market share) and NIIT (7.9 per cent market share), China Digital (with 3.8 per cent market share) and East Software - Dongruan (with 3.4 per cent market share).

eLearning China: Higher Ed

An article titled, 'On The Brink of Revolution' in The Guardian discusses the changing competitive landscape for British higher education. From the article:

"...China can't build campuses fast enough to keep up, so the problems of student support and pedagogy of online learning will have to be solved..."

"...China, followed by India, is going into the higher education business in a big way - as teachers as well as learners. The competition is no longer against American or Australian universities but increasingly with Chinese universities seeking to attract overseas students.

Although the report, English Next, focused mainly on teaching English, it had major implications for higher education delivered in English. David Graddol, an applied linguist, said China, which has traditionally been a major source of international students, was repositioning itself as a net exporter of higher education, poaching students from its Asian neighbours, such as India, Japan and Korea. China, says Graddol, will soon be able to offer cheaper degrees that are taught in English and come with the added incentive of Mandarin, a language that is becoming increasingly important to the international business community.

Singapore and Malaysia are also establishing themselves as "education hubs", says Graddol. The number of international students heading to the UK is already declining. Last year, four out of five universities reported a drop. The number of Chinese students, the largest single source, was also found to have fallen at some institutions by as much as 50%.

"Most UK universities have seen a recent fall-off in international student numbers. These students are not coming back, it's a long-term trend," says Graddol. "The number of students going into China is increasing. More have been going into China than have been coming out," he adds..."

Some recent numbers out of China:

By iResearch
The Chinese online education market is still in its infancy as reported in the recent 2004 China Online Education Research Report, by iResearch, a Chinese IT online market research provider.

The report mentioned that the Chinese online education market is worth RMB 14.4 billion (US$1.7 billion). As e-learning becomes more recognized with the popularity of Internet, its market scale is estimated to escalate to RMB 29.6 billion (US$3.6 billion) by 2007.

By Analysys International
China's total market size of Internet services (mobile value-added services excluded) reached RMB18 billion in 2005, representing an increase of 41% from 12.8 billion in 2004, in its recently released report China Internet Market Report 2005-2006.

According to the report, Analysys International classifies Internet services into three business models: contents, marketing services and intermediate services. Contents and marketing services are the major income source of China's Internet services market.

Contents services, represented by Internet games, instant messaging services, B2C and online education, reached RMB10.5 billion in 2005, accounting for 58% of the market total. Typical service providers include Shanda, Netease, The9, New Oriental, China Education Online (EOL) and Tencent.

From CERNET-Blackboard
CERNET-Blackboard, a marketing agency of online educational technology Blackboard, reported Tuesday the number of Blackboard clients in China had grown to 96 at the end of 2005.

"We are excited about the achievement as it was made in only two years," said Jiang Aiping, CERNET-Blackboard marketing manager. Current Blackboard clients in China are mainly colleges and universities, including the prestigious Renmin University of China, Beijing Normal University and Nanjing University.

eLearning China: Enter The Dragon

The time seems to be right to discuss eLearning opportunities in China. Indian vendors are bound to want to test the waters and explore opportunities in this vast country. So what are the opportunities and why will Indian companies want to set up shop in China:

• Indian vendors may want to service their US and European clients who may be expanding operations into China
• Indian vendors may want to create a base in China and service geographies such as Japan, South Korea & Taiwan
• Indian vendors may want to take a shot at tapping the domestic markets in China.

William J. Rothwell, author of “Scaling the Great Wall: Training in China,” which appeared December 2004’s issue of Training Magazine, comments,

“Assuming that China’s market is the same as the U.S. and marketing approaches that work in the U.S. will work in China is a mistake. Chinese people are more trusting of people who can speak their language and understand their culture, though they have great respect for Western expertise.”

Here are few more comments from experts in the article,
“It is important that multinational companies get away from thinking that one approach fits all cultures. Such thinking remains a common ground for complaint in China” - Xaozhen (Jenny) Yan, Director Motorola University, China.

“Only those with an innovative business model, carefully segmented marketing and specific quality delivery will prosper.” - Nick Arnold, President of Leadership for Life and Campus International.

But those who do their homework will prosper as it is estimated that by 2005, the e-learning market in China is projected to be worth $37 million. (Source: Training Magazine.)

As Rothwell points out, the Chinese say,” You can get anything you want in China--as long as you are patient enough to wait.” But although patience might be a virtue; prior knowledge is always gold.

In 2003, China’s 1,552 colleges and universities enrolled 3.8 million students for bachelor degrees, and over 220,200 students for master degrees and 48,700 for doctoral degrees. The National university entrance rate reached 19% in 2004. The country’s 558 adult higher learning institutions, for those who did not enter college, enrolled in more than 1.59 million students to teach skills in the agricultural, industrial, educational, medical, health, financial, and public security sectors. According to China’s Ministry of Education, more will be done within the next few years to develop vocational and adult education programs, serve regional economic and social development, and promote on-the-job and re-employment training programs.

American universities are very active in promoting American education in China. As of April 2004, there are over 137 Ministry of Education approved joint programs with foreign institutions. The United States is the destination of choice for Chinese who want to enroll in an MBA program. However, high costs, long absences from home and visa concerns make this choice somewhat difficult. Many of the programs are U.S. MBA programs. Presently, the U.S. leads the market in providing joint venture MBA and EMBA programs in China, but competition from European, Canadian and Australian organizations is increasing.

Many experts believe that e-learning is ideal for China because it solves much of China’s education needs. With its limited education resources, China can use long distance learning to educate its 200 million elementary and high school students. To that end, in October 2000 China’s Ministry of Education launched the “All Schools Connected” project, which will equip all of China’s 550,871 K-12 schools with e-learning systems by 2010. The Ministry also encouraged 67 top universities to offer e-learning degrees to produce more talent for the country’s burgeoning economy. The nation’s very best high schools can also create Internet schools to train teachers and tutor students in far-flung regions. Private companies also heeded the e-learning call, many now offer vocational training and certification exam preparation online.

Sources:
Jedlet.com Journal
BuyUSA

eLearning China: Report On Chinese IT Training Industry

via Tim Wang's Blog:

Just read an up-to-date marketing report on Chinese IT training industry. The report is written in Chinese, here is my translation:

Summary on Chinese IT Training and Education 2004

Chinese IT training and education market generated 3.35 billion Yuan in sales (approximately 558 million Canadian dollars) in the year 2004, a 16.3% increase over 2003.

Marketing Structure
From product and service point of view, basic IT training (28.7%) and internet application training (22.7%) played two important roles in the market, them together generated over 50% of the total profit. The other IT training sectors that worth to mention are: software development training (14.7%), database administration (11.1%), operating systems and desktop publishing (18.2%).

Vertical Analysis:
Corporate training continuously to be the main form of demand in this market, it converts over 75% of the total IT training marketing profit. There was an obvious increase in demand from the enterprise and government in the previous year. Here is the break down list based on profit based on the demands from the year 2003 to 2004: Education (50 million RMB, 8.7%), Government (261, 24.9%), Family/Home/Residential (510, 6.5%), large size enterprise (1530, 19.5%), medium size enterprise (849, 16.4%), small size enterprise (150, 9.5%), total 3.35 billion RMB.

Parallel Analysis:
Communication, Finance, Energy and Manufacture are four major sectors in the IT training industry. Here is the break down list based on industrial demands: Communication (610 million RMB, 21.8% increase), Construction (6, 0.0%), Transportation (280, 6.9%), Education (50, 8.7%), Finance (567, 20.1%), Research (30, 7.1%), Mobilization (210, 2.4%), Media (290, 3.6%), Energy (420, 18.0%), Health (250, 8.7%), Dawk (420, 5.0%), Government (260, 24.9%), Manufacture (420, 21.4%) and Others (400, 11.7%), total 3.35 billion RMB.

Geographic Analysis:
Central China continuously had the largest on IT training over other areas in China. However, North West regions are catching up. North East and South West are slowing down.

Brand Names:
Top five IT training co-operations: Beijing University, APTECH, NIIT, Chinese Academy of Science Software Training Centre, ATEC and DigitalChina. These five companies control over 40% of the IT training market in China.

One of the biggest trends in the IT training industry is that web based training is replacing face-to-face training. This trend will continue it's momentum in the year 2005. The original Chinese document is located here.