More than 97,000 massive open online courses (MOOCs) are currently available in China, with 1.39 billion course participations recorded, according to the Ministry of Education on Thursday.

Both figures rank first globally, the ministry said.

It noted that China's smart platform for higher education has launched 31,000 online courses to date, hosted by a total of 78,000 lecturers, and has recorded over 93 million visits from users in 183 countries and regions.

In recent years, the ministry has been pooling efforts to launch quality MOOCs and implement a special program providing more open online courses for students in the country's less-developed western regions, advancing the digital development of higher education.

Source: Xinhua