China is ready to share its experience in digitalization and educational equity with the international community through UNESCO to jointly tackle the challenges of the artificial intelligence era, Minister of Education Huai Jinpeng said on Wednesday.

Huai made the remarks at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris during a high-level ministerial segment and the launch of the 2026 Global Education Monitoring Report — a flagship report monitoring the implementation of the United Nations' 2030 agenda for sustainable development in education. The 2026 report is themed around opportunity and equity.

Noting that China places high priority on education and has made educational equity and quality a national commitment, Huai said that the country has set the strategic goal of becoming a global leader in education by 2035 and is formulating its education development plan for the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30).

He outlined China's efforts to meet public demand by continuing to expand the scale of higher education, enhancing the quality of higher education innovation in response to technological progress, improving talent cultivation quality to serve economic and social development, and ensuring fair access to higher education.

He also put forward three suggestions for the development of global higher education beyond 2030. One is shifting from knowledge transmission to competency cultivation, fostering students' critical thinking, global vision and the ability to solve complex problems. Another is enhancing scientific research capabilities and promoting multidisciplinary integration and deeper industry-academia collaboration. Additionally, he stressed the importance of open cooperation in building an educational community and strengthening exchanges among universities worldwide to jointly address major challenges.