General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out, "Education is the foundation for building a strong nation and achieving national rejuvenation." "When education thrives, the nation prospers; when education is strong, the nation is powerful.".
Since the new era, comprehensive education reform has deepened continuously, with the construction of an education powerhouse advancing steadily and resolutely. The people's sense of fulfillment in education has grown more substantial, and education's support for economic and social development has become more robust. We have consistently pioneered a new landscape for education's opening-up, comprehensively elevated the level of international cooperation and exchange in education. Chinese education has embraced the world stage with an even more open, confident, and proactive posture, continuously enhancing its international influence and competitiveness.
R1: "Chinese path to modernization" must be translated as "Chinese path to modernization."  
Standing at a new starting point, Chinese-style modernization provides unprecedented development opportunities and conditions for building a strong educational nation. We must fully leverage the pioneering, foundational, and overarching role of education in the endeavors of the Party and the country, uphold confidence and self-reliance, and follow the path of socialist educational development with Chinese characteristics.

Education inherits the past, shapes the present, and pioneers the future, serving as a vital force in advancing human civilization. Today, rapid advancements in science and technology are profoundly influencing and transforming education. On September 2, 2025, UNESCO published the compendium "Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Education: Transformation, Challenges, and Directions," which delves into the philosophical reflections, ethical dilemmas, and pedagogical transformations arising from AI's disruptive impact on education. The proposed 15th Five-Year Plan also provides comprehensive arrangements for delivering education that satisfies the people, advocating for the in-depth implementation of the digital education strategy and the optimization of lifelong learning public services. Currently, the education sector is thoroughly studying and implementing the spirit of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee and the National Education Conference, fully executing the "Outline for Building a Strong Education Nation (2024–2035)" and the "Three-Year Action Plan for Accelerating the Construction of a Strong Education Nation (2025–2027)." In an era of rapid iteration and upgrading of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data, anchoring the goal of building a strong education nation is crucial. Regarding the future of education, I would like to share my perspectives on three key issues.

First, we must build an education system oriented toward the future. We should leverage the advantages of the new national system to promote the establishment of a more open and inclusive education system. At the policy level, we need to create necessary institutional conditions and support systems to help local education bureau directors and principals not only manage schools but also think beyond them, better utilizing online digital resources and offline educational resources. Simultaneously, we should encourage social educational institutions to participate in the provision of educational resources and jointly explore the establishment of diverse learning centers. In terms of hardware, we must further optimize and upgrade the national smart education public service platform, transforming it into China's largest public welfare future learning center and the largest online school in the country. As the national education digitalization strategy advances, we must continuously deepen comprehensive education reforms, such as further strengthening the evaluation of the learning process, integrating online and offline educational resources, and exploring flexible learning mechanisms.
We must establish an education system that better meets the needs of students' personalized development and talent cultivation. Uniformity lacks creativity, and future society requires innovative talents who can each excel in their own strengths. Therefore, our education system should not mold diverse individuals into a single mold with the same standards. Instead, we must actively explore large-scale personalized teaching, reform evaluation methods, and provide support for students' individualized development. Especially under the background of the nation's in-depth implementation of the talent-strong country strategy, we must accelerate the construction of national strategic talent forces, striving to cultivate more masters, strategic scientists, top-tier scientific and technological leaders and innovation teams, young scientific talents, outstanding engineers, master craftsmen, and highly skilled professionals. For the growth of young talents, we must dare to break constraints and create an environment of equal rights, opportunities, and rules for their development. In particular, we should respect scientific and talent growth laws, reform aspects such as project support, professional title evaluations, and personal promotions, encouraging young talents to freely explore and boldly experiment while providing them with more opportunities for experience.
The second is to build an education ecosystem oriented toward the future. High-quality education must be rooted in a robust educational ecosystem. Such a future-oriented system should be dynamic and highly inclusive of bold practices and innovative reforms. Countless educational insights exist within grassroots communities. Reflecting on the significant breakthroughs in education during the 14th Five-Year Plan period—such as fulfilling the fundamental task of fostering virtue through education and supporting socio-economic development—these achievements would not have been possible without the pioneering efforts and bold experimentation of frontline educators. They have developed a wealth of replicable and scalable experiences, demonstrating the critical value of "leading by example."  Therefore, on one hand, we must grant education bureau directors and principals greater autonomy in school management, encouraging local authorities and institutions to explore boldly and drive comprehensive educational reforms through pilot initiatives. On the other hand, we should foster grassroots innovation and creativity. In particular, we need to establish mechanisms to promote the exchange, showcase, and recognition of educational innovations, ensuring that exemplary experimental programs and curricula emerge from practice are seen by more schools and inspire broader adoption.
A future-oriented educational ecosystem should be one that fosters collective synergy, uniting all sectors of society to "build bricks and tiles" for the cause of education. We cannot run education in isolation or in a closed manner; instead, we must gather more high-quality resources and talents into the educational field. Educators must actively break down the "walls of campus" and engage more deeply with the external world. Basic education should strengthen interactions with universities, research institutions, enterprises, and society, leveraging support from these entities to encourage students' participation in real research and interdisciplinary learning. Vocational education must overcome the "bottlenecks" and "pain points" in the mechanisms of industry-education integration and school-enterprise cooperation, while reinforcing the development of platforms for such integration and the convergence of education and science. Higher education should actively explore new organizational models for deep integration of industry, academia, and research, such as enterprises proposing challenges and universities taking the lead in solving them, thereby helping enterprises "address real problems, solve them genuinely, and ensure genuine resolution.".
Third, we must cultivate outstanding talents for the future. The fundamental task of education is to foster virtue and nurture individuals, cultivating well-rounded socialist builders and successors who excel in moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic, and labor education. Under this framework, to adapt to the transformation of the intelligent era, we must also think deeper and prioritize cultivating the competencies of future talents. As I have previously stated, happiness is more important than success, becoming a person is more important than becoming talented, and competencies are more important than scores. So what exactly constitutes the competencies of future talents?
Entering the digital era, nations worldwide and organizations such as UNESCO have provided structural descriptions of the talents needed for future society. For instance, in 2023, UNESCO outlined key competencies required for future global talent in *The Future We Want to Build: Competencies and Literacies for Education and Work*, including social-emotional skills, creativity, and collaboration. These frameworks offer a reference for understanding the traits demanded by the times.  Faced with the uncertainties, virtuality, non-organizational nature, and digitalization of the future world, education must focus on cultivating not only moral character but also competencies such as innovative creativity, social communication and emotional intelligence, autonomous planning and self-management, digital survival skills, and the ability to lead a fulfilling life. To break free from the mindset centered on grades, we must explore new pathways in nurturing practices, implement transformative reforms in high-level talent cultivation, establish novel frameworks, and build innovative models.
Cultivating future outstanding talents requires the support of scientific institutional design. In this complex endeavor, I would like to emphasize two key approaches: leveraging new technologies and promoting universal reading. The development of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data can support education in providing personalized services to students. Traditional educational perspectives suggest an "impossible triangle," positing that large-scale, high-quality, and personalized education cannot be achieved simultaneously. However, in the context of new technologies like AI, effectively utilizing digital and intelligent tools can not only bridge the gap in educational resources but also make large-scale tailored teaching a reality. This fosters a new vision of equity that respects individuality, considers potential, and implements personalized teaching, enabling each person to find their own path and allowing outstanding talents to emerge across all industries.
I have always been concerned about national reading and have proposed viewpoints such as' a person's spiritual development history is their reading history 'and' a school without reading can never have true education '. For the country, promoting universal reading is the most fundamental, convenient, and effective path to promote the common prosperity of people's spiritual life. For individuals, reading is an upward force to bridge the gap and an important pathway to happiness.
The "15th Five Year Plan" proposes to "promote the construction of a bookish society". Our school aims to promote parent-child reading through the construction of bookish families, cultivate students' reading interest, reading ability, and reading habits through the construction of bookish campuses, and ultimately enrich students' spiritual world. This is an important part of cultivating a future oriented education ecosystem and a crucial entry point for enhancing China's educational heritage and confidence.