Norway Says AI Ain’t for Education

There will be no token mixing in Norwegian classrooms. According to a Reuters report, the country’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoerre announced on Friday that the government will ban the use of AI tools in schools in an effort to combat the negative impact they have on learning.

The new rules, which will take effect when students return to school in August this year, will impose an almost complete ban on AI for primary school students in grades one through seven, generally covering ages 6 to 13. As soon as students enter lower secondary school for classes 8 to 10, where children are typically between the ages of 14 and 16, they will be allowed to use AI tools under the supervision of their teachers. For students aged 17 and older entering upper secondary school, the rules are slightly looser. But those children are still encouraged to use AI only when appropriate.

“The most important thing in school is that our children learn to read, write and do math,” Stoerre said, according to Reuters. When you put it that way, it sounds pretty fair!

Norway has been one of the countries campaigning against the excessive spread of technology in schools. In 2024, the nation banned smartphones in classrooms, requiring students to lock their devices during school hours. Apparently it worked wonders. According to a study published by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, bullying decreased across the board and grade point averages began to climb after the device ban was implemented. After this, the country planned to ban social media earlier this year, under which anyone under the age of 16 will be kept away from the social platform.

According to Reuters, as part of its Luddite-ian mission to reduce reliance on technology in learning environments, Norway’s leadership also said it plans to propose legislation that would increase funding for the purchase and use of books in classrooms.

This change is perhaps most interesting for the country, given how it has changed its previous approach to technology in the classrooms. In 2016, Norway announced plans to issue a tablet to every student from age 5 onwards. The results were devastating, as the country saw its literacy rate drop dramatically and its test scores decline. It is now in the process of taking the screens out of the classroom environment and returning to a more analog approach. And sure, this might risk creating a generation of hipsters, but at least they’ll be able to read.