AI Education in Schools: Regulation vs AI Literacy

In the past week, I’ve read about two very different approaches to AI education in schools.

New York City has announced a one-year moratorium on student-facing generative AI for students up to eighth grade.

At the same time, the UAE has made AI a mandatory subject in public schools from kindergarten through Year 12.

Two very different responses to the same problem.

What’s interesting is that both approaches come from concerns about how students are using AI. Students are using it, sometimes outsourcing their thinking, becoming over-reliant on it and not necessarily developing the skills to understand or question the technology they are using.

That same concern is something I’ve been hearing from young people in Western Australia.

What are students saying about AI in education?

As part of my work with the Fogarty Foundation, I’ve been speaking with young people across WA about what role they think AI should play in education.

Again and again, I hear two things at once.

They are worried about AI.

They’re worried their peers are using it too much. They’re worried about what happens when we outsource our thinking. Many are uncomfortable with how quickly AI has become part of education.

But they also want AI literacy because they know it isn’t going away.

Students are telling me that they don’t necessarily want more AI. They want to understand the AI that is already around them.

That distinction matters.

AI education in schools cannot just be about teaching students how to use ChatGPT or another generative AI tool.

AI literacy needs to go beyond prompting

If we think AI literacy means knowing how to write a good prompt, we are missing a huge part of the picture.

Students need to understand how these systems work at a basic level, why they get things wrong, what happens to their data and how to question an output.

They also need to understand when AI is useful and when they need to do the thinking themselves.

These are skills students need whether or not their school allows them to use generative AI for an assignment.

Young people are already encountering AI outside the classroom.

They see AI summaries at the top of Google searches. They watch AI-generated videos on YouTube. They encounter AI-generated images and content across the platforms they use every day.

They may also interact with AI chatbots and other systems without necessarily thinking about them as "AI".

That means regulating one type of AI use on a school device only addresses part of the problem.

Regulation and AI literacy are different things

There is a legitimate question about when students should have direct access to generative AI, particularly younger children.

Schools need to consider age, maturity, privacy, learning goals and the potential impact of AI use on students' development.

A school may decide that there are situations where students should not have access to a particular AI tool.

That doesn't mean those students don't need AI education.

In fact, the opposite may be true.

If a student is not allowed to use generative AI for schoolwork, they can still encounter it when they search online, watch videos, use social media or interact with other digital services.

Students need the skills to recognise and question AI wherever they encounter it.

What should AI education in schools actually teach?

A useful AI education program should give students more than a list of approved and prohibited tools.

It should help them understand the technology and make informed decisions about it.

For example, students can learn:

How AI systems can get things wrong

AI can produce convincing information that is inaccurate.

Students need to understand that a confident answer isn't necessarily a correct answer and develop habits around checking important information.

How to question AI outputs

Critical thinking becomes even more important when AI can produce an answer in seconds.

Students need to consider where information has come from, whether it makes sense and whether there is evidence to support it.

What happens to their data

Students are constantly sharing information with digital platforms.

AI literacy should include conversations about privacy, personal information and what happens when people put information into AI systems.

When AI helps and when it replaces thinking

There are situations where AI can support learning.

There are also situations where handing a task to AI removes the thinking and practice that the student actually needs to develop.

Students need to understand that difference.

How AI fits into the wider online environment

AI isn't only something students access through a chatbot.

It is increasingly part of search, social media, video, advertising and other online experiences.

AI education needs to prepare students for that broader environment.

What can schools learn from different approaches?

The approaches being taken internationally are worth watching because they highlight a much bigger question about AI education in schools.

Should schools focus primarily on limiting access to AI?

Should they focus on teaching students how to use it?

Or do we need to think about both?

There is still a legitimate place for boundaries around student access to technology. Schools have to consider the age and developmental needs of their students and the purpose of the technology being introduced.

But access rules alone don't teach students how to navigate the world outside school.

A student can leave school and immediately encounter AI-generated content, AI summaries, recommendation systems and chatbots.

They need to know how to think about those technologies.

That is why I think the conversation needs to be bigger than whether students are allowed to use generative AI for their schoolwork.

AI education needs to prepare students for the world they actually live in

New York City's moratorium and the UAE's curriculum-first approach represent very different ways of responding to AI in education.

New York's experiment will be interesting to watch, particularly in terms of what happens to student learning and AI use during and after the moratorium.

But whatever approach schools take, students still need to understand the technology that surrounds them.

AI literacy has to prepare young people for that world, not just regulate what happens on a school device.

The students I speak with are already telling me that.

They know AI is here.

They know it can be useful.

They also know there are risks when we outsource too much of our thinking.

What they need is the knowledge and critical thinking skills to navigate it.

For schools looking to build those skills, Paris delivers practical AI literacy workshops that help students understand AI, question what they see and make more informed decisions about how they use technology.