The Education Department of Yunnan Province, together with the Provincial Development and Reform Commission, the Department of Industry and Information Technology, the Department of Science and Technology, and the Provincial Data Bureau, has jointly issued the "Yunnan Province 'AI + Education' Action Plan." The plan outlines 15 key tasks across six major areas: comprehensively promoting general AI education, strengthening the teaching workforce, highlighting AI talent cultivation, deepening AI's role in building a strong education province, boosting scientific research innovation and international cooperation through AI, and consolidating the foundational conditions for AI development.
According to the Action Plan, by 2030, Yunnan aims to achieve full coverage of general AI education across all educational stages, establish a dedicated and part-time teaching workforce for AI literacy, and significantly enhance the AI literacy and application capabilities of both teachers and students. The initiative is designed to empower student learning, teacher instruction, and educational governance, while also supporting scientific research innovation and international collaboration through a robust infrastructure and service system tailored to demand.
To comprehensively promote general AI education, the plan calls for building an AI curriculum system spanning primary and secondary schools. It includes the compilation and promotion of AI textbooks and readers, guiding schools to offer dedicated AI courses. Specifically, fourth and seventh graders are required to receive one class hour of AI instruction per week, while students in other grades must complete no fewer than eight class hours per academic year. Schools are encouraged to develop distinctive AI courses incorporating local elements such as biodiversity and green energy.
Vocational institutions are directed to integrate AI into public foundational courses and professional electives. Secondary vocational schools will focus on basic cognition and tool application, while higher vocational colleges will emphasize scenario-based applications and solution design, with practical training content accounting for no less than 50% of the curriculum. Universities are urged to build categorized AI public foundational course modules covering all disciplines—including liberal arts, science, engineering, agriculture, and medicine—with a minimum requirement of two credit hours or 32 class hours.
Beyond formal schooling, the plan emphasizes spreading AI knowledge to the wider public. Resources such as general courses, skill enhancement programs, and career transition training will be aggregated on the Yunnan Education Public Service Platform and made openly accessible. Universities, research institutes, and high-tech enterprises are encouraged to open their AI laboratories and science popularization bases to the public on weekends and during school holidays, offering hands-on experiences to raise the overall AI literacy of the population.
Regarding teacher development, the plan mandates building a team of full-time and part-time AI education instructors. This includes targeted training for AI general education teachers, with local authorities required to allocate a certain proportion of provincial public-funded normal students and local teacher excellence plans in information technology and science each year. Schools are encouraged to recruit AI instructors through open recruitment, talent introduction, and job-transfer training, while also bringing in professionals from universities, research institutes, and high-tech enterprises as part-time AI teachers.
A mechanism will be established to cultivate backbone AI teachers and leading principals, with plans to train approximately 100 provincial-level backbone teachers and 50 leading principals in AI education. Teacher AI literacy and application skills will be incorporated into training plans at the provincial, prefecture, county, and school levels, with classified and tiered training programs designed to achieve full coverage of school teachers and principals within three years. Specialized practical training will focus on AI lesson preparation and teaching tools available on the Yunnan Platform, alongside regular digital literacy enhancement activities.
The plan also calls for the formation of no fewer than 50 AI teaching and research communities through renowned teacher studios, facilitating cross-school and cross-regional collaborative research. AI application capability will be included in teacher qualification examinations and evaluation criteria, with intelligent education projects to be recognized in provincial teaching achievement awards.
In terms of AI talent cultivation, the plan emphasizes upgrading traditional majors in vocational colleges. This involves scientifically designing an "AI +" specialty system and creating more than ten "AI +" higher vocational specialty clusters. Additionally, over ten "AI +" industry colleges and more than 50 virtual simulation training bases will be established, incorporating real enterprise projects into practical teaching. Talent development will be accelerated in emerging fields such as embodied intelligence, with AI application tracks to be added to vocational college skills competitions.
The plan supports the construction of "AI +" high-quality courses and professional teaching resource libraries. Universities are encouraged to establish AI-related disciplines, with plans to build over 50 specialty points, more than ten AI colleges and future technology colleges, and accelerate the development of AI-related master's and doctoral programs. Double-degree compound talent training programs, micro-majors, and minors combining AI with other disciplines will be promoted, alongside intelligent integration and transformation of traditional majors into "Four New" specialties with AI characteristics. Universities are also encouraged to offer specialized "AI + advanced manufacturing" programs, jointly developing talent training plans with industry partners to cultivate urgently needed AI professionals for the advanced manufacturing sector.
Deepening AI's role in empowering education, the plan proposes enhancing student learning through digital learning spaces on the Yunnan Platform, featuring AI study companions that provide intelligent analysis and personalized tutoring to boost learning efficiency. A unified digital student growth archive will be improved, collecting necessary data on learning processes, practical activities, and physical and mental development to support precise teaching and student self-planning. AI learning tools will be deployed extensively in border areas, border gate schools, and rural schools to promote the national common language and empower coordinated development of moral, physical, aesthetic, labor, and science education. Students will be guided to use intelligent tools responsibly, avoid over-reliance, and enhance their ability to discern information.
Teachers will be encouraged to regularly use AI lesson preparation and teaching tools from the Yunnan Platform to improve teaching quality and efficiency. They will be guided to continuously enhance their AI application skills, gradually transitioning from knowledge transmitters to learning facilitators and data analysts. Pilot programs will be supported to explore new AI-empowered teaching models, with on-site promotion meetings, quality lesson evaluations, and teaching skills competitions organized to select and promote outstanding application cases and typical scenarios, helping teachers move from "using tools" to "using tools well and innovating teaching."
For educational governance, the plan aims to continuously improve basic datasets on students, teachers, and schools on the Yunnan Platform, promoting data co-construction and sharing to provide precise support for educational decision-making and resource allocation. Intelligent levels will be enhanced in areas such as student registration management, learning analysis, physical and mental health monitoring, employment guidance, and talent training quality tracking. The entire examination and enrollment process will be made more intelligent, while digital supervision of educational finance will be improved to ensure dynamic traceability of fund usage. Smart campus governance will be advanced through modules like digital campus dining and campus digital security, deploying scenarios such as drowning prevention smart alerts and digital management of earthquake disaster emergency drills.
The plan also promotes AI-supported scientific research innovation and international cooperation. Universities are encouraged to explore AI-driven research paradigms, building scientific intelligences and intelligent tools to assist researchers in data mining, model construction, and pattern discovery. Full access to the "Yunnan AI Scientific Research Platform (YUNNAN AI4S)" will be encouraged, with shared computing resources, scientific model libraries, and research datasets. Support will be provided for building more than five high-quality scientific datasets, including biodiversity gene and species data and plateau characteristic agricultural germplasm resources. Universities are encouraged to use AI for "virtual pilot testing" in research activities to optimize processes, improve efficiency, and reduce costs.
Collaboration with Kunming City will be supported to establish a digital economy incubation park for universities in Yunnan, promoting the incubation and transformation of research outcomes. For international cooperation, an RCEP education zone will be established on the Yunnan Platform, aggregating multilingual AI course resources for open sharing with RCEP member countries. Universities will be supported in organizing or participating in international academic conferences on AI, while universities, research institutes, and tech enterprises are encouraged to co-build digital training bases and virtual laboratories with RCEP member schools. The "Lancang-Mekong Workshop" initiative will be advanced for joint international talent training, and exchanges of AI education activities between primary and secondary schools in Yunnan and RCEP member countries will be encouraged.
To consolidate foundational conditions, the plan requires enhancing infrastructure support capabilities by coordinating computing resources to support AI + education needs tailored to local conditions, effectively leveraging computing power, data, and models. The education private network will be optimized and upgraded, with full-fiber campus networks to be built across schools. The Yunnan Platform's service capabilities will be improved through the creation of an "AI Education Zone" integrating quality resources and AI teaching tools. AI study companions and lesson preparation toolkits will be continuously iterated and upgraded to promote regular, in-depth usage by teachers and students, while deep integration with the National Smart Education Platform will be pursued for resource sharing and data interoperability.
Digital campus construction will be optimized through regular evaluation of equipment usage efficiency and timely updates of outdated facilities. Existing computer classrooms and libraries will be revitalized through equipment upgrades and functional renovations to create multifunctional AI teaching spaces. Recording and live-streaming classrooms will be built as needed to meet teaching scenarios such as online research and quality lesson recording. An integrated campus service system will be developed covering access control, reading, attendance, consumption, and safety alerts in key areas.
Finally, the plan emphasizes strengthening AI scientific research by encouraging universities to conduct AI research and build high-level innovation platforms. University AI research platforms will be supported in studying algorithms, data, and models for educational scenarios. A special "AI + Education" research fund will be established to support school-based and action research on AI course development and teaching model innovation. Provincial and inter-provincial education cooperation projects will be leveraged to promote in-depth AI research collaboration between universities inside and outside Yunnan.
Source: Spring City Evening News
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