Chinese firm provides online learning platform in Egypt

Chinese company NetDragon's distance learning platform Edmodo will help Egypt's students learn online as the novel coronavirus epidemic closed schools in the country.

NetDragon, headquartered in Fuzhou city, said Edmodo was selected by Egyptian education authority as the online learning platform for the country's K12 education system.

The platform will be rolled out to over 22 million students and over 1 million teachers in Egypt in the period of school suspension due to the outbreak of novel coronavirus.

As part of this roll-out, Edmodo will also join hands with the Egypt Knowledge Bank, one of the world's largest educational digital libraries, to bring in a massive volume of interactive content including research journals and other exclusive educational resources for students and teachers.

"The deployment of Edmodo across Egypt will create a positive transformation in the use of innovative and effective approaches to teaching," said Simon Leung, vice chairman of NetDragon.

In 2018, NetDragon acquired 100-percent stakes of Edmodo, once a leading U.S. online learning community.

Edmodo was one of the recommended distance learning applications and platforms by UNESCO in view of the disruption to education worldwide due to the coronavirus epidemic.

According to UNESCO, over 100 countries have suspended schools so far, affecting over half of the world's student population. UNESCO has updated a "distance learning solutions" section on its website with a recommendation list of distance learning platforms.