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South Korea’s plan to introduce artificial intelligence-powered digital textbooks in schools has provoked a backlash from parents and academics concerned about children’s overexposure to digital devices and potential misinformation.
Education minister Lee Ju-ho said this week that tablets loaded with AI features were “pivotal” to a planned overhaul of the Korean school system. The technology is set to be introduced next year into classrooms for schoolchildren as young as 8.
But the proposal, which the South Korean government says is the first of its kind in the world, has been met with opposition by many parents already anxious about the amount of time their children spend using smartphones and tablets.
South Korea consistently ranks among the highest-performing countries in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment tests. However, the government in Seoul is worried that a traditional emphasis on rote learning is stifling innovation, at a time when the country is seeking to reduce its dependence on traditional manufacturing industries.
“We can all agree that we need to move from a one-way, memorisation-based classroom to a space where students can engage and take ownership of their learning,” said Lee. “2025 is a pivotal year for that change and we need to leverage AI textbooks to help teachers transform their lessons.”
According to South Korea’s education ministry, the tablets will be customisable so that “fast learners” and “slow learners” can be assessed by the software and given different AI-generated tasks with varying levels of complexity.
But the government has provided few details on exactly how the digital textbooks — and other AI-powered education tools being developed by Korean tech firms including LG and Samsung — will work or how the system would be prevented from AI’s tendency to “hallucinate” or produce errors.
The AI apps will be introduced for all subjects except for music, art, physical education and ethics by 2028, with teachers monitoring activity through a digital dashboard. Pupils will be given classes in digital literacy to help them to deploy AI tools responsibly.
“AI textbooks will enable teachers to evaluate each student’s study level and pace based on their data, and provide a tailored education for each one of them,” one government official said.
“Many students tend to fall asleep in class as some of them already learned the content in private cram schools and others just fail to follow the lessons,” the official added. “[Soon] they will be able to think outside the box as AI textbooks provide various content for any situation and induce their interest in study and help them think creatively.”
Other AI tools to be introduced into Korean classrooms include programmes that can transcribe a teacher’s remarks on to an electronic whiteboard while they roam the classroom. The country has also piloted mobile robots offering AI-generated responses to student inquiries.
But many observers remain wary of the government’s proposals. Shin Kwang-young, professor of sociology at Chung-Ang University in Seoul, said the government was trying to introduce the AI textbooks “too hastily without properly assessing the side-effects just because AI is a megatrend nowadays”.
More than 50,000 parents have signed a petition demanding the government give greater consideration to students’ overall wellbeing. “We, as parents, are already encountering many issues at unprecedented levels arising from [our children’s] exposure to digital devices,” the petition read.
Lee Sun-young, a 41-year-old Seoul-based mother of two school-age sons, said she would prefer to see more after-school teachers hired to help students than AI textbooks.
“I am worried that too much usage of digital devices could negatively affect their brain development, concentration span and ability to solve problems — they already use smartphones and tablets too much,” she said.
Nonetheless, the South Korean government’s introduction of AI textbooks has been welcomed by many teachers, with 54 per cent of state schoolteachers surveyed by the Korean Federation of Teachers’ Associations expressing support.
South Korea’s move goes against the trend in other developed countries where governments have sought to restrict or roll back children’s access to smartphones and tablets in schools.
AI in the classroom risked “getting out of control”, said Shin, given to the potential spread of false information, plagiarism and leaks of students’ personal information.
Addressing legitimate concerns about rote learning required “properly” overhauling the education system, including examination methods, Shin added.
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