BEIJING -- China launched a national online education platform to facilitate the continued learning of its 180 million middle and primary school students who have been confined to their homes amid the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Jointly launched by the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Feb 17, the free learning platform covers the 31 provincial-level regions on the Chinese mainland.

Nearly 2.1 billion visits had been paid to the platform's website as of May 11, said Lyu Yugang with the MOE at a press conference Thursday.

The platform has been upgraded to further enrich its resources, which feature 10 sections including studying courses, epidemic prevention education, moral education, mental health education and classic literature.