All Korean Schools Will Have AI-powered Tablet Textbooks by 2028.

Educators recently had a breaking news of South Korea adopting an “AI textbook” for all students — an ultimate digital transformation of classrooms — with a vision to dramatically personalize the public education on the 1:1 level. Personalized learning and digital transformation have always been the very buzzwords and the crucial needs for teachers who take care of 30-40+ students per class. All the assumptions aside, this Korean guy will tell you exactly what’s going on, what it means…and a bit of (actually, a lot) controversies. And what can we learn from them?

South Korea 🇰🇷 is the first country to fully adopt AI textbook in the national level. Ahead of the implementation of AI textbooks, the Ministry of Education has allocated 533.3 billion won (approximately USD 400 million) for related projects this year. Of this amount, a significant portion of 380 billion won (approximately USD 285 million) is earmarked for teacher training.

By definition, AI digital textbook is a personalized learning tool that uses AI to provide tailored content to students, analyzing their data to identify knowledge gaps and recommend appropriate resources.

The Ministry of Education subtitled its “Guideline for Developing AI Digital Textbook” as “5 Million Textbooks for 5 Million Students.”

What are the key use cases?

AI digital textbook will be gradually adopted — starting from Grade 3, 4 of elementary, Grade 1 of middle (Grade 7), and Grade 1 of high (Grade 10) in 2025 focused on English, Math, IT, and Korean for SEN (Special Educational Needs), with its goal for full adoption by 2028.

We are yet to see the confirmed AI textbooks to be added to the system. Some of the proposed textbooks include an AI-powered English speaking practice app, math questions generator, etc.

Going beyond simply scanning paper textbooks and transferring them to digital devices, these textbooks can interact with students.

AI takes on the role of analyzing students. Based on the questions students frequently get wrong, the AI can re-explain key concepts or present similar problems. It also serves to check to what extent learning objectives have been achieved. By gathering various data such as students' strengths and weaknesses, learning attitudes, and level of understanding, the AI presents it in a "dashboard" format. Students, teachers, and parents can utilize this data. Pretty cool.

Is the digital infrastructure in Korea ready?

It will require a stable and fast internet, right? Korea finished installing a GIGA-speed internet to 100% of the classrooms. In addition, tablets have been gradually distributed to all students for free.

Who’s making the infrastructure and the textbooks?

You might be familiar with this brand: LG. Maybe you have some of their TVs or laundry machines, or you might have even bought their smartphones now far gone into history.

And their affiliate LG CNS, South Korea's largest cloud computing service provider, after a fierce competition, was selected to be the main company to develop the infrastructure. I’m not here to sell their company, so I’ll cut it here (but their education kit has some cool, interesting stuff including AI tutor).

Then, the government is also working with EdTech companies and traditional textbook producers to select the content.

Now, the problems and controversies 🔥

The concept overall seems to be tackling a lot of critical issues and needs of the modern public education. But, as always, we are now seeing lots of practical issues and complaints.

Recently, just before the implementation of AI digital textbooks, parental opposition has surfaced. On May 27th, a petition titled 'Petition to Postpone the Introduction of AI Digital Textbooks in 2025 by the Ministry of Education' was posted on the National Assembly's 'People's Agreement Petition' website. Within a month, on June 27th, the petition garnered 56,000 signatures. Once a national petition surpasses 50,000 signatures, the relevant standing committee of the National Assembly reviews it and can refer it to the plenary session. In such cases, the government must report its measures to the National Assembly.

The Seoul Teachers' Union claimed that among 1,794 teachers, who had participated in at least one teacher capacity-building training session, 94% of the participating teachers oppose the full-scale introduction of digital textbooks. Additionally, 76% of the respondents do not believe that digital-based classes contribute to strengthening public education competitiveness, and 80% responded that digital-based classes are not innovative teaching methods.

The key problems, which I believe you could already tell, include:

• Lack of empirical evidence: Insufficient research supports the claim that AI digital textbooks significantly improve student outcomes.

• Digital divide: AI-based learning could exacerbate educational disparities, as students from disadvantaged backgrounds may not have the same access to technology or support.

• Over-reliance on technology: Reduced teacher-student interaction and loss of human connection could hinder the development of important social and emotional skills.

• Data privacy concerns: Collecting and storing vast amounts of student data for AI analysis raises serious privacy concerns, including the risks of data breaches and misuse.

• Unforeseen consequences and technical challenges: The introduction of AI into education could have unintended negative impacts, such as increased screen time and decreased physical activity, as well as technical difficulties in implementation.

Simply speaking, DISTRACTION and NOT PREPARED. Some students already received a tablet since 2022, and parents criticize that they have no ideas what students are actually doing with it. They also could easily play video games.

The government also had some critical delays in their timeline and now cramming all the agenda in the next 3 months or so to make it happen.

Do you think you are ready to adopt such changes into your classrooms? Well, for some teachers, having a technology (computers or tablets) in a classroom is not new at all. But for Korean public education, just like in most of the countries, such changes may be too disruptive. Do you think your government should push such changes?

I hope this post gave you an insight on how other countries are changing their education. If you liked this post, subscribe to get weekly insights for educators on global innovation in education.

See you in the next one 👋,

Christopher Lee (Let’s connect on LinkedIn!)

Room for Growth