Produced by: Manoj Kumar
Starting this fall, six-year-olds in China won’t just learn ABCs—they’ll dive into AI. Welcome to the world’s first national policy making artificial intelligence part of the first-grade curriculum.
Forget math drills—Chinese high schoolers are now tasked with training algorithms and exploring deepfakes. It’s not optional. It’s mandatory.
AI is now as foundational as reading or math in Chinese schools. Some students will learn neural networks before long division. The future just became a subject.
This isn’t a pilot or a tech-savvy province—it’s every student, every region, every grade. China’s making AI literacy a civil duty, not an extracurricular.
Teachers across China are racing through crash courses in AI ethics and machine learning frameworks. The chalkboard is going digital—and fast.
Imagine second graders building robots or tweaking chatbot scripts. In China, it’s becoming routine. By graduation, teens could out-code most adults.
It’s not just coding. Students are taught about AI ethics, surveillance concerns, and algorithmic bias—preparing them not just to build tech, but question it.
Rather than overhaul the system, China’s weaving AI into existing STEM and IT classes—creating a hybrid curriculum built for disruption.
This move isn’t just about kids—it’s about supremacy. By embedding AI into basic education, China is building a workforce meant to dominate the 2030s.