Norway restricts AI use in schools, cites concerns over learning and cognitive skills

The Prime Minister addressed a conference on Friday. The use of AI among younger children impacts their cognitive skills and hampers their learning curve, which results in skipping valuable aspects in their education.

“The most important thing in school is that our children ​learn to read, write and do mathematics,” Stoere said. To transform education, new standards and policies will be implemented in late August when the new school year commences.

Norway’s evolving technology in classrooms

Students in primary and middle schools will not be allowed to use generative AI tools in classrooms under the proposed framework. Certain liberties have been permitted by the government for students enrolled in lower secondary school. It involves the use of AI tools under the supervision of a teacher.

However, the government understands the changing landscape of technology in the modern world. Ensuring that students do not skip the learning steps and have successfully passed middle and lower secondary school, based on the idea of this policy framework, students enrolled in upper secondary education have been permitted to use AI appropriately to be prepared for higher education and the workplace.

Norway integrated technology into education in the 1990s and from the 2010s onwards by introducing tablets and iPads in classrooms. Students relying on books and handwriting practice in the classroom were observed to have reduced.

Norway plans to return to books

To reverse the effects of the implementation of tablets and iPads, the legislation plans to use the funds to buy more books for the classroom, the government said.

The Norwegian government plans to ban the usage of social media by younger children in April, following the framework implemented by Australia and other nations.

(The article is curated by Salonee Kulkarni, who is an intern with The Indian Express)