Snapask Launched The “White Paper on Independent Learning in Asia Pacific”

The wave of online learning started due to the epidemic, Snapask, an Asian self-learning technology brand, launched the “2020 Asia-Pacific Independent Learning White Paper” for the first time before Sunday and partnered with the Institute of Learning Science and Technology of Tsinghua University , to discuss the self-learning situation of students in the Asia-Pacific region through data across seven markets in the Asia-Pacific region. We hope that students, parents and those who are concerned about the education industry can observe the first-line learning trajectory and work together for the future of autonomous learning.

As the epidemic has changed the way of learning around the world, self-learning activities in the Asia-Pacific region have produced brilliant results. Compared with the total number of users in the Asia-Pacific region from February to May 2020, the number of monthly active users increased by more than 80% on average. For South Korea, which had a severe initial epidemic, the number of new users soared by 3.75 times in May. And the questions raised by Japanese users tripled in May. Although Taiwan had relatively adequate control of the epidemic and fewer school closures, the number of new users has increased by 60%.

The trend of independent learning is rising. Snapask observed that the education policy and environment in the Asia-Pacific region were changing. Taiwan’s Ministry of Education promoted the 108 syllabus that emphasizes literacy education and independent learning while Vietnam adjusted university admissions regulations and Singapore’s latest education policy was also oriented toward “self Guided learning”. Snapask, the leader in self-learning technology in Asia, analyzed time-course issues from seven markets including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea with nearly 4 million users from grades 1 to 12 and 350,000 active tutors supporting instant problem solving. Through the frequency of asking questions, subjects and the time of using APP, the first “White Paper on Autonomous Learning in Asia Pacific 2020” was launched.

The Paper pointed out that the majority of users in the Asia-Pacific region who conduct online learning are from grade 10 to grade 12. The subject content of the stage is more difficult and they also face more difficult entrance examinations. More than 70% (73%) of Indonesian users are high school students and nearly 50% (45%) of users in Japan are senior high school students. In terms of the volume of inquiries in different subjects, nearly 70% of students in the Asia-Pacific region often ask (most care about) mathematics and science and English is closely followed. In particular, although Hong Kong is a bilingual area where both Chinese and English are used, the volume of English questions is still similar to the average of Taiwan, Japan and South Korea in non-English systems.

Yu Youqian, founder and CEO of Snapask, said: “The ability to learn independently is particularly important in today’s rapidly changing era. Many job opportunities are created due to new technologies and new demands. There is no longer a fixed framework for auditing talents. Everyone begins to have more opportunities to move towards diversified development. We believe that if we can cultivate enough self-learning ability, we will be able to respond to this constantly changing world more immediately. This time we are honored to cooperate with the Institute of Learning Science and Technology of Tsinghua University to learn about students’ learning habits through the first-line learning track, so as to provide corresponding resources and train more students in the Asia-Pacific region to become independent lifelong learners.”

According to the “Staged Self-Directed Learning Model”, learners’ learning attitudes are divided into four categories: passive, dependent, engaged and autonomous. Different types of teachers should help a person eventually learn and grow toward an “autonomous type”. According to the Snapask, the current education system is mostly based on teachers. The assistance provided in improving students’ independent learning is limited and the teacher’s educational style cannot satisfy every student. Most of the students’ learning characteristics fall into passive and dependent type.

The 2020 epidemic has a huge impact on the education scene. Distance teaching and digital learning have become the new normal of education. Liao Guanzhi, director of the Institute of Learning Science and Technology of Tsinghua University, pointed out, “Do students have enough independent learning ability to make good use of technological tools and integrate physical? It is an important topic that the education circles of all countries have long been paying attention to. At the same time, it is necessary to further analyze the connotation and characteristics of learning behavior through scientific inquiry and data integration and guide students to learn independently and actively by asking questions. The campus should extend into daily life.”

Snapask also conducted a questionnaire survey with the New Taipei City Bureau of Education for middle school students to examine the self-learning appearance of students after the implementation of the 108 syllabus. At the same time, it also compared the profile of Snapask’s users. The study found that Snapask users were more motivated to learn independently than ordinary students and up to 75% of users have high autonomous learning ability, which is better than the average of 27%. Among them, students with good self-learning ability were more inclined to designate teachers to ask questions and browse extracurricular knowledge on Snapask, showing that students were aware of their suitable learning methods and willing to actively seek extracurricular knowledge.

Su Shihan, Snapask’s chief of staff, said: “We believe that autonomous learning should be free from the past school and family fields. Snapask’s quiz creates a “third space” for students to learn independently and provides students with a full range of independent learning resources. In addition to real-time matching and home-teaching, this year we’ll shoot more than 2,000 rigorous learning short videos and ribbon-like easy-to-absorb course programs based on the new syllabus. At the same time, it will also provide a question bank with more than 10,000 questions for students to practice and refine themselves. In this way, we hand over the control of learning to students, develop a personalized learning method and enable them to obtain the required learning resources at any time, making up for past educational restrictions and fully promoting autonomous learning.”

In view of the fact that technology can effectively assist students in cultivating their self-learning ability, Snapask has added tens of millions of US dollars to the Taiwan market and is committed to providing all-round learning resources to enable students to master their learning progress. It will work to strenghten localization and strive for more than three times growth in the number of users in 2021 and also work with scholars and schools to implement more industry-academic cooperation programs, hoping to help students at different stages become independent learners and jointly promote the advancement of the education industry.