Report shows digital divide between rural and urban teachers is narrowing

A report on primary and secondary school teachers' digital literacy shows that artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming a routine teaching aid in China, while the urban-rural gap in digital skills continues to narrow.

The report, released on Tuesday at the 2026 World Digital Education Conference in Zhejiang province's Hangzhou, is based on a large-sample assessment of 530,000 teachers across 19 provincial-level regions. It found that 14.77 percent of teachers use AI tools every day, while only 3.41 percent have never used them.

According to the report, 85.17 percent of teachers believe AI helps expand teaching resources, and 81 percent say it saves lesson preparation time. AI tools embedded in smart teaching platforms are the most popular, used by 82.68 percent of teachers, followed by general-purpose large language models, used by 76.2 percent.

Most teachers, however, are still in the early stages of exploration. About one-third use AI only for simple assistance, while another third use AI in targeted ways during specific teaching segments. Fewer than 20 percent integrate AI throughout the entire teaching process, and only about 10 percent use AI to innovate teaching models.

The report also highlights a narrowing digital divide between urban and rural educators. On 13 indicators, the gap between the two groups is less than 5 percentage points. In eastern regions, more than 90 percent of teachers hold a positive attitude toward AI, while in central and western regions, the figure exceeds 70 percent.

With regard to training needs, most teachers want practical guidance on resource development, basic operations and application scenarios. Nearly half have called for regulations and ethical guidelines for AI in education.

"When AI handles routine tasks, teachers can focus on nurturing people," said Wang Wei, head of the education bureau of Futian district in Shenzhen, Guangdong province.

The district has created hands-on AI toolkits for all 19 subjects and uploaded them to the national smart education platform for teachers in other regions to share. More than 80 workshops have generated over 1,170 AI application cases covering 20 provincial regions, he said.

Futian is also developing a teacher AI literacy framework with 43 observation points and has issued guidelines outlining encouraged, restricted and prohibited AI uses.

"Preparing future teachers for future schools is not simply teaching them how to use tools," Wang said. "It is helping them complete a profound role transformation — from transmitters of knowledge to designers of learning, from followers of technology to trendsetters in human-machine collaboration, and from single-subject teachers to cross-disciplinary innovators."

"What truly determines a nation's competitiveness in the next two decades?" asked Zhao Yixin, a senior executive at Chinese tech giant Huawei.

His answer: the "AI talent dividend", whose foundation lies in classrooms and on teachers' podiums.

Zhao warned of a growing "AI generation gap" — students are using AI while many teachers still explain AI concepts with slides. Huawei has proposed a "teachers first" strategy and built an AI teaching practice platform to help teachers become AI designers, collaboration nodes and decision-makers.

The company has also partnered with Zhejiang Normal University to embed AI literacy into preservice teacher training, compressing days of lesson preparation into hours.

"Teachers will not be replaced," Zhao said. "But teachers who do not use AI may be replaced. The responsibility to educate will always remain in teachers' hands."