Taiwan’s Khan Academy
Founded amid a rising tide of web-based education projects, Junyi Academy first went online in 2012. “Hoping to do things that help education in Taiwan,” its founder, Fang Shinjou, who is also chairman of Chengzhi Education Foundation, got authorization to use resources from Khan Academy, the largest free self-study site on the web. His aim was to provide free, first-rate educational materials tailored to Chinese-speaking learners in the Internet age.
Junyi has also become the biggest platform for online learning among Taiwan’s elementary and junior high schools. Behind the scenes, another key figure in its rise is Ray Lu, known as “Taiwan’s Kahn,” who is now chairman and CEO of Junyi Academy.
First in his class from elementary school through senior high School, Lu was still an intern at a hospital in 2012. One day, scanning newspaper headlines at a breakfast joint as he drank his soy milk, he came across an article titled “Bill Gates’ Favorite Tutor.” It told the story of how hedge-fund analyst Salman Khan founded Kahn Academy.
When working as a home tutor years earlier, Lu had noticed that when students came across a concept they didn’t understand, if they couldn't find someone to explain it to them they would often get stuck, unable to understand their textbook and reference materials. If students whose parents were able to pay for supplementary education encountered such obstacles, the situation was naturally much worse for those who couldn’t afford tutors or cram schools, or who lived in remote areas without educational resources. Inspired by Khan, Lu started in his spare time to make videos about high-school English and math, giving clear, in-depth explanations of underlying concepts. He posted the videos on YouTube in the hope that students who wanted to learn would watch them. The students could watch the videos over and over until the concepts entered long-term memory. In this way he could help to close the educational gap between the haves and have-nots.
Lu’s virtuous desire to share knowledge caught the attention of Junyi founder Fang Shinjou. In 2013 Fang invited Lu, who was by then a licensed doctor, to join the KIPP-Inspired Schools foundation as a special instructor for video teaching projects. Chang Hui-cheng, the founder of Sharestart, says of Lu: “He forsook the much-admired field of medicine with its ‘gold rice bowl’ for the ordinary status of a teacher with its ‘iron rice bowl.’” Faced with a choice between practicality and pursuing his dreams, Lu chose the latter, steadily taking steps to achieve his aim of “providing free educational resources for all.”
Ray Lu, CEO of Junyi Academy, is working hard to realize his dream of providing free educational resources to everyone.