A team of Chinese students tests the robots they made as they prepare for a major robot competition in the U.S. (Photo : www.globaltimes.cn)
Robotics education and its important application in engineering has reportedly taken off in China over the past years, as robots have become increasingly popular among people, the China Daily reported.
Liang Yujun, head of the science education department at Beijing Youth Center, said that there are nearly 300 primary and middle schools in Beijing offering robotics-related curricula and activities now.
Liang is in charge of robotics education in the capital and also the general referee of the national youth robotics activity. According to Liang, only about 20 schools had such curricula and activities in the early 2000s.
The report said that about 3,000 registrants from 160 schools and extracurricular teams participated in the 2014 Beijing Student Robotic Intelligence Competition.
"We have to hold the competition in one of the city's largest sports fields now, which can accommodate the increasing number of players," said Liu Yi, who is charge of running the competition at the Youth Center in Haidian District.
Liu said that the competition, which began in 2012, reflects the dramatic growth of robotics education in the country.
It had about 1,400 students in its first year, Liu said. He added that robotics education was introduced in China at the turn of the millennium.
In 2001, Jiaotong University Middle School In Beijing became the first school that opened a robotics course in China and introduced a robotics course as a requirement for all students and an elective for high school students.
"We were the first of China's middle schools and high schools to introduce robotics as required courses," Zu Haodong, a teacher at the Jiaotong University Middle School and general referee of the national youth robotics activity, said. Zu added that Shanghai and Shenzhen, regions that have rich educational resources, have also started robotics classes at the time.
Zu, who was a teacher of electronics engineering-related elective courses then, said that students had creative ideas but still find it difficult to make a product.
"In electronics engineering, innovation is a very high bar, requiring solid professional knowledge. . . . Robotics is not, it's more like hands-on projects. Students can complete a robotics assignment based on their ideas and knowledge," Zu said.
The report added that robotics education was considered a "luxury" during the early 2000s, which only schools with resources and a vision can afford to offer, such as the primary school attached to Peking University and Jiaotong University Middle School.
The Ministry of Education later added robotics education, with the development of technology, and included simple robot-making and artificial intelligence to the national high school curriculum as an elective in 2003.
The ministry also required physics courses to introduce robotics applications and incorporate robotics education in the required courses.
Robotics courses were also gradually introduced in the curricula of well-funded schools and cities. Robotics competitions were also organized by education authorities to encourage more schools to get involved.
An annual student robotics intelligence competition has been held by the Beijing education authority since 2012, organized by the youth center in Haidian District and the Jiaotong University Middle School.
Some middle schools in Beijing have also started to hire students with robotics talent, especially those who have won in robotics competitions, further heating robotics education.
In April, the Haidian Ddistrict released its 2015 science and technology talent student recruitment plan showing all eight schools qualified to hire students with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) skills and expressed their desire to hire students with skills in robotics.
Zu said that aside from preferential recruitment policies, the trend in robotics education is fuelled by genuine interests of students.
