Tsinghua Holdings' subsidiary MOOC-CN Education Investment Co., Ltd., and the African Engineering Education Association jointly launched an online learning platform for the University of Lagos on May 22.

The platform unilag.xuetangx.com was launched at the International Engineering Education Forum held by the International Center of Engineering Education under the Auspices of UNESCO at Tsinghua University. It was built by XuetangX.com, one of the largest online education portals in the world under MOOC-CN Education.  

Nie Fenghua, Chairman and President of MOOC-CN Education said the Lagos platform aims to bring the world's best academic resources from leading universities to Africa and promote local engineering education.

MOOC-CN Education Chairman Nie Fenghua delivers a speech at the International Engineering Education Forum held by UNESCO ICEE at Tsinghua University.

XuetangX.com, developed by Tsinghua University in 2013 as the world's first Chinese MOOC platform, provides more than 1,000 courses from the world's best universities including MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Tsinghua University and Peking University, to users in 175 countries and regions.

The portal was the third biggest online education portal in the world in terms of course numbers and users in 2016, behind only Coursera and edX, according to Class Central, a renowned open online course aggregator in the US.

Nie said the construction of the Lagos English platform has been completed and 16 free courses are now available on the site.

He added that the platform is to promote equal access to education worldwide, which is in line with China's Belt and Road Initiative spirit of peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit.

XuetangX has plans to build four to five more platforms in Africa in the future and introduce Lagos' courses to its Chinese platform to let Chinese learners know more about African history and culture, according to Nie.

AEEA President Funso Falade (center) visits XuetangX's offices on May 23.

AEEA President Funso Falade said that he will make efforts to promote the platform among Lagos' teachers and students, and that he expects to see more courses made available online in Africa in the future.