At a September 23 State Council Information Office briefing, Guo Peng, director of the Ministry of Education's development planning department, said undergraduate enrollment expansion at Double First-Class universities will continue: 24,000 more places this year, bringing the three-year total to 62,000 additional undergraduate admission slots. From 2027 to 2030, at least another 76,000 places will be added, with priority support for artificial intelligence, integrated circuits, biomedicine, new energy and other frontier and emerging interdisciplinary fields, along with support for new campuses and improved basic teaching conditions.
The Beijing Leading Group for Employment Promotion and Labor Protection issued the "Skills Beijing" Training Action Implementation Plan on September 1, 2026, published on September 23. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the city plans more than 4.5 million vocational skill training sessions and over 350,000 new skill certificates, including at least 150,000 for high-skilled talent. The plan calls for broad AI literacy education and joint AI training bases built by enterprises, universities, vocational colleges and technical schools.
Beijing Municipal Government PortalSchools / Educators
AI4MiddleSchools, a multistate partnership with ties to Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science, is expanding to Connecticut, Mississippi, New Jersey and Pennsylvania while deepening implementation in Georgia, Texas and Florida. The initiative teaches middle school students machine learning, natural language understanding, computer vision and automated decision-making, and examines bias, ethical design and societal impacts. Over the next three years, it is forecasted to reach approximately 15,000 students, 1,700 educators, 100-145 teacher leaders and 100-150 administrators.
U.S. First Lady Melania Trump promoted the Fostering the Future Together initiative in New York on September 22 during the United Nations General Assembly, focusing on AI in education, EdTech tools, online protection and digital skills. The State Department said the initiative spans at least 57 countries, with Adobe, Amazon, Google, Intel, N50, Starlink and Zoom joining. Google committed $4 million to expand its AI Educator Series, and Amazon is expanding free access to its Kiro AI software-engineering agent through 132 universities.
St Colman's College in Newry has become the first school on the island of Ireland, and one of only 20 worldwide, to achieve the Gold AI Quality Mark from the Good Future Foundation. The accreditation recognises schools for ethical, strategic and impactful use of artificial intelligence in teaching, learning and leadership. The college previously received the Most Ethical Use of AI in Education Award at the Ulster University AI in Education Awards, and last year 30 students completed a pilot of the Pearson Generative AI Foundations certification, which will now become a permanent part of the curriculum.
The Florida State Board of Education last Wednesday approved two AI policy rules. Public school districts and charter school governing boards must amend their internet safety policies to include AI guardrails by July 1, 2027. Schools must notify parents when teachers approve an AI instructional tool, including the platform name, classes, and nature of student interaction, and provide a process for parents to object and alternatives. AI tools used in PreK-5 require additional age-appropriateness reviews, and the 28 state college boards of trustees must adopt AI use and limitation policies.
At the United Nations General Assembly, Amazon announced support for First Lady Melania Trump's Fostering the Future Together global coalition, which brings together first spouses from more than 45 countries. Amazon will give students at 132 universities across 18 countries free one-year access to Kiro, partner with Khalifa University in the UAE on an AWS data center infrastructure training program, and launch coding clubs in Dubai and Abu Dhabi schools reaching more than 460 students aged 12–18. The efforts build on Amazon's $2.5 billion Future Ready 2030 commitment to help upskill 50 million people.
a16z has launched the Horowitz Andreessen Academy, positioned as a direct alternative to a classic four-year college degree. Its inaugural Founding Class Fellowship is a one-year program starting Fall 2027, tuition-free, with $50,000 in compute credits and a $5,000 travel and research budget. The Academy has raised $42M led by a16z, with ten founding partners including Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and Nvidia co-creating curriculum and offering hands-on learning.
The Tech PortalStudents / Schools
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K99.1FM reported on September 22, 2026 that a Chalkbeat review found at least 13 states have passed laws about AI in education, but most direct state agencies and districts to create their own AI guidance. About three out of four states have published AI education guidance, yet these documents tend to skirt cheating and devote more space to AI literacy and teacher efficiency. A Common Sense Media survey published last month found 70% of teens report using AI for schoolwork.
US community colleges are working to democratize AI education. Antonio Delgado, vice president of innovation and technology partnerships at Miami-Dade College, began studying employer demand for applied AI talent around 2019 and developed an applied AI associate degree with no prerequisites, partnering with IBM, Microsoft, AWS, Google and Intel to train faculty. The first class enrolled only 30 students; after ChatGPT appeared, enrollment rose to 750. Delgado also founded the National Applied AI Consortium to help community colleges meet labor-market demand for applied AI workers.
Issues in Science and TechnologySchools / Educators
On September 22, 2026, Handshake opened AI Skills Studio, a free project-based learning hub for any job seeker, with missions expected to take 10 to 45 minutes each. The company co-designed hands-on projects with Clay, Figma, Google, OpenAI, Replit, Salesforce and others. Completed projects are added to the user's Handshake profile and AI Showcase, and users receive a verified skill badge visible to more than one million employers that use Handshake. More than 40 missions are available at launch, sorted by career or topic, covering marketing, sales, data analysis, AI assistants, research, apps and sites, images and video, and design.
The UC Irvine School of Education has launched the National Center for Writing Research to Improve Teaching Effectiveness with Generative AI, known as the WRITE AI Center, through a $10 million federal grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences. Over five years, the center will develop and evaluate evidence-based approaches to using AI in writing instruction and conduct two major studies: a nationwide survey and case study, and an implementation and evaluation study using UCI's PapyrusAI platform. A randomized controlled trial is set to fully kick off in year three, covering more than 1,000 community college students across 60 classes in three states.
Dubai-based GEMS Education is preparing to introduce AI-powered digital twins of its teachers, giving students personalised support and subject expertise beyond the school day. The first phase will be based at GEMS School of Research & Innovation, with the GEMS Global Education AI Hub and the GEMS Intelligence 360 platform serving as a testing ground where teachers, students and partners co-design and evaluate the AI agents. The programme is intended to scale across GEMS' school network in the Middle East and beyond, with a working solution targeted for release before the end of 2026.
At a Fostering the Future Together (FTFT) event in New York held alongside the opening of the 81st UN General Assembly, Intel announced it will scale its AI in Education, EdTech Tools and Digital Literacy programmes across 10 countries including Kenya, covering AI for Citizens, AI for Youth and Semiconductor for Youth. The event brought together representatives of 57 nations and technology companies, secured seven new private-sector partnerships, and announced a $4 million AI education investment and $2.75 million in new grants. Specific programmes, schools and beneficiary numbers for Kenya have not yet been announced.
Learning Commons, backed by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, launched an open platform for educators and edtech developers, alongside six new partner organizations. The platform has two main components: the Knowledge Graph and Evaluators. The Knowledge Graph publishes K-12 data on GitHub under an open license, including academic standards from all 50 states, learning progressions and curricula. Evaluators measure whether AI-generated content is accurate, grade-appropriate, evidence-based and aligned to state standards. Since its 2025 launch, its datasets have been downloaded about 20,000 times, with more than 70 partners.
On September 22, 2026, 2U announced a partnership with CodeSignal to bring more than 400 hands-on, practice-based courses to edX, its global online learning platform, for the first time. The first courses are now live, with the full catalog available on edX by the end of the year. Roughly a third to half of the initial catalog focuses on practical AI skills, including prompt engineering, AI literacy for business roles, ethical AI development, and building AI-powered applications. Skill checks are built into the courses, and CodeSignal's AI tutor Cosmo provides one-on-one guidance and instant feedback.
The Pinggu District Education Commission in Beijing has awarded the second phase of its "AI Plus Education" application platform to Beijing Feixiang Xingqiu Technology Co., Ltd. for 14.945095 million yuan, with a comprehensive evaluation score of 96.55. The result was published on the Beijing Public Resource Trading Service Platform on September 22, 2026, with an agency service fee of 82,005.87 yuan, and was also released on the Beijing and China government procurement websites.
Beijing Public Resource Trading Service PlatformSchools / Educators
