China imposes the teaching of artificial intelligence at all levels in its schools technology

The Chinese government announced its official plan to integrate artificial intelligence into all educational levels in a step that would achieve Chinese President Xi Jinping’s vision of dominating advanced technologies, according to a report by the American Bloomberg Agency yesterday, Monday.

The plan calls for enhancing artificial intelligence education throughout the educational stages for all students, as well as enhancing problem-solving and identification capabilities.

The plan ultimately aims to make artificial intelligence a basic ability for every Chinese student, which reflects China’s efforts to cultivate high-level talent in various fields of technology.

According to the agency, Chinese decision-makers are trying to achieve a balance between productivity gains resulting from the use of various artificial intelligence technologies and employment stability in light of a fragile labor market that is witnessing a rise in youth unemployment rates.

Chinese courts ruled earlier this year that companies cannot fire employees to replace them with artificial intelligence technologies or robots, according to a separate report from the American magazine Fortune.

In a related context, a report from the Chinese news website China Daily revealed that artificial intelligence has become a routine educational tool in China, especially with the diminishing difference in digital skills between the Chinese countryside and cities.

The report was based on an evaluation of a large sample that included 530,000 teachers in 19 Chinese provincial regions.

The uses of artificial intelligence by teachers varied greatly, as 85% of teachers saw it as helping to expand educational resources, while 81% saw it as saving time preparing lessons, according to the report.

A report by the Chinese News Agency (Xinhua) monitors the expansion of Chinese schools’ adoption of artificial intelligence tools in education to assist students at various stages and in various aspects of the educational process, including monitoring the sports field.

Various uses

The Xinhua report refers to a sixth-grade student named Mo Ziqing who relies on artificial intelligence tools to solve difficult mathematics problems instead of waiting for the teacher to respond to her.

But the use of artificial intelligence in Chinese schools was not limited to chatbots to help students only, as the Second Primary School on Liaochen Street in Dadong District in Shenyang found an innovative use of computer vision techniques enhanced by artificial intelligence in following students on the athletics track.

The school relies directly on advanced monitoring devices to monitor heart rate and exercise intensity and provide safety alerts to students during physical education classes.

The city of Beijing also requires all primary and secondary students to receive at least 8 hours of AI education each academic year, while some schools are testing AI applications for lesson preparation, learning assessment and personalized teaching.

Despite the expansion of the use of artificial intelligence in education, Professor at Beijing Natural University, Yu Xingxuan, warns against artificial intelligence taking over tasks designed to develop children’s thinking abilities, stressing that relying on this technology may cause what he described as a cognitive defect during a critical stage of children’s intellectual development.