Education
China trains AI natives as it closes the algorithm gap with the US
In 2024, China’s Ministry of Education issued nationwide AI education implementation by 2030. Credi
As global competition in artificial intelligence (AI) intensifies, the US-China rivalry has expanded beyond chips and models to include the competition for talent and education integration.
Ministers are facing calls to not cut education plans for children and young people with special needs and disabilities (Send).
Campaigners say education, health and care plans (EHCPs) are “precious legal protections”, warning that thousands of children could lose access to education if the plans are abolished.
The government has said it inherited the current system “left on its knees”. Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson described it as a “complex and sensitive area” when asked if she could rule out scrapping EHCPs.
But Neil O’Brien, the shadow education minister, has criticised the government for “broken promises and U-turns”.
An EHCP is a legally binding document which ensures a child or young person with special or educational needs gets the right support from a local authority.
Full details of the proposed changes are due in October, but ministers have not ruled out scrapping the education plans, insisting no decisions have been taken.
In a letter to the Guardian newspaper, campaigners have said that without the documents in mainstream schools, “many thousands of children risk being denied vital provision, or losing access to education altogether”.
“Whatever the Send system’s problems, the answer is not to remove the rights of children and young people. Families cannot afford to lose these precious legal protections,” they added.
Signatories to the letter include the heads of charities, professors, Send parents including actor Sally Phillips, and campaigners including broadcaster Chris Packham.
Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Ms Phillipson saidL
“What I can say very clearly is that we will strengthen and put in place better support for children.
“I’ve been spending a lot of time listening to parents, to disability rights groups, to campaigners and to others and to colleagues across Parliament as well, because it’s important to get this right,” she added, but said it is “tough”.
Mr O’Brien, the shadow minister, said the government had “no credibility left”.
“This is a government defined by broken promises and u-turns. They said they would employ more teachers and they have fewer. They said they would not raise tax on working people but did,” Mr O’Brien said.
Data from the Department for Education released in June showed that the number of EHCPs has increased.
In total, there were 638,745 EHCPs in place in January 2025, up 10.8% on the same point last year.
The number of new plans which started during 2024 also grew by 15.8% on the previous year, to 97,747.
Requests for children to be assessed for EHCPs rose by 11.8% to 154,489 in 2023.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We have been clear that there are no plans to abolish Send tribunals, or to remove funding or support from children, families and schools.”
The spokesperson added that it would be “totally inaccurate to suggest that children, families and schools might experience any loss of funding or support”.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is bringing a fresh wave of innovation to South Korea’s public education sector. big tech companies are actively developing AI-based solutions for public education and forming partnerships with schools alongside edtech startups.
According to the information technology (IT) industry on Sunday, Naver launched a digital public education support system called Whale UBT in April 2025 and integrated it into the Gwangju Metropolitan Office of Education’s teaching-learning platform, Gwangju AI-ON. Naver also plans to expand adoption to other regional education offices
Whale UBT allows for the unified management of various test items – including diagnostic and unit assessments – within a single platform. A database of about 400,000 questions provided by four educational publishers is available, enabling teachers to create customized tests based on students’ levels.
It also features automatic grading.
To date, AI education platforms were adopted more rapidly in private education, where entry requirements are comparatively less restrictive. The use of AI tools in public education was initially determined by individual teachers; however, their implementation has been rapidly increasing at both the school and district levels.
This trend is driven in part by the increasing sophistication of AI solutions. These tools now go beyond simply marking answers right or wrong – they can analyze step-by-step processes for descriptive questions, improving both convenience and educational outcomes.
A good example is edtech startup Turing Co.’s math learning platform, Math King. Turing signed a memorandum of understanding with the Korea Association of Future Education Study in February 2025 to promote adoption of Math King in Korean schools.
Math King can generate personalized problem sets for each student in just one second, and AI analyzes even the descriptive answers in homework assignments. The system automatically generates consultation reports that can be sent to parents and includes recommendations for future learning directions.
“We are using Math King for advanced classes, and it has eliminated the hassle of creating customized math problems,” Gyeonggu High School teacher Park Jun-hyung said. ‘I can now manage nearly twice as many students.”
AI solutions also help with administrative tasks, significantly reducing teachers’ workloads, particularly for writing student records.
While many teachers have already been using tools like ChatGPT informally for record writing, new, more convenient solutions are now being developed. These specialized AI tools offer stronger security than ChatGPT.
Edtech startup Elements launched inline AI in April, a solution specifically designed to assist with student record writing. It employs a local Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) system, ensuring that data is not sent externally. The AI updates student records automatically based on data from teachers and students.
Given the rapid growth of the AI education market, adoption in public education is expected to accelerate even further. According to market research firm Straits Research, the global AI education market is projected to grow from $4.43 billion in 2024 to $72.45 billion in 2033.
By Ahn Sun-je and Lee Eun-joo
[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]
Parents who experience a miscarriage before 24 weeks of pregnancy will be entitled to bereavement leave under a planned law change.
The government is set to amend the Employment Rights Bill to give parents the legal right to take time off work to grieve if they experience pregnancy loss at any stage.
As it stands, bereavement leave is only available to parents who lose an unborn child after 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said the change will give “people time away from work to grieve”.
“No one who is going through the heartbreak of pregnancy loss should have to go back to work before they are ready,” Rayner said.
Parents are currently entitled to a fortnight’s leave if they suffer pregnancy loss after 24 weeks, or if a child younger than 18 dies.
The extended right to leave will be for “at least” one week, though the exact length is still being consulted on.
The Employment Rights Bill, which includes further measures to protect in law the right of employees to have time off to grieve the loss of a loved one, is already making its way through Parliament.
Labour MP Sarah Owen, who chairs the Women and Equalities Committee, has previously campaigned for the change.
In 2021, she told MPs that after her own miscarriage she felt physically better in a few days but had “all the classic signs” of grieving.
“I could not eat, I could not sleep. I really did not hold much hope that life would ever get brighter,” she said.
In March, business minister Justin Madders told MPs he accepted the principle of bereavement leave for pregnancy loss and promised to look at adding the right to the Employment Rights Bill.
Vicki Robinson, chief executive of the Miscarriage Association, welcomed the announcement.
She said it was “a hugely important step that acknowledges the often very significant impact of pre-24-week loss, not only for those experiencing the physical loss, but for their partners too”.
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