China mandates AI classes for 6-year-olds in national education push

At Beijing No. 35 High School, an agent now handles the first pass on student programming assignments. "Previously, we had to examine each student's code line by line, which took a tremendous amount of time and effort," programming teacher Dong Yue told Xinhua. The hours recovered go into lesson planning and professional development rather than repetitive grading.

Technology company iFlytek showcased its Tongchuang AI Blackboard at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai from July 17 to 20, Xinhua reported. Teachers write on it with a smart pen as they would on a traditional board, then tap once to clean up their handwriting. A rough sketch of a triangle snaps into a standard shape and flips into a rotatable 3D model. The system pulls up related teaching materials on its own and records lessons for students to review later. iFlytek, a strategic partner of this year's conference, says the board is in routine use across 33 provincial-level administrative regions and more than 1,400 districts and counties. The company says its wider education products reach over 60,000 schools and 160 million teachers and students.

China connected every primary and secondary school to the internet in 2020. Vice Minister of Education Wang Jiayi has said the technology points toward individualized learning pathways replacing a one-size-fits-all model, with more flexibility and greater learner autonomy.

Current systems still misjudge some kinds of writing, including travel essays, and struggle to follow how a student reasons through a math problem, Xinhua reported. Data does not always transfer cleanly between competing platforms.

Yu Shengquan, a professor at Beijing Normal University, warned that handing AI the tasks designed to build children's thinking could produce what he called a "cognitive short-circuit" at a formative stage. Ma Zhanyu, a professor at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, said AI functions as a tool when it organizes information or returns feedback. Problems arise when students surrender their own analytical and creative roles to it.

"That is precisely why the role of teachers has not been diminished but rather strengthened," said Wu Chunhui, vice principal of Beijing No. 13 Secondary School. "AI is an assisting tool. It cannot replace teachers in providing values-based guidance, inspiring students intellectually, or engaging empathetically with students in complex situations."