Future Economics Institute report finds Hong Kong school AI platforms form data silos

The Future Economics Institute published its report on AI application and data governance in Hong Kong primary and secondary schools on August 3. Over one year the team visited more than 40 secondary schools and 40 primary schools and collected over 200,000 pieces of student AI coursework data, finding that the AI platforms used by schools do not interconnect and lack unified standards, creating data silos. The report recommends that schools assess data storage and export arrangements when procuring AI platforms, that school sponsoring bodies set common data governance requirements, and that a voluntary product certification scheme be built across sectors.

Hong Kong's government has set aside HK$2 billion through the Quality Education Fund for AI education, with each publicly funded primary and secondary school receiving HK$500,000 to procure AI teaching hardware and software, learning platforms and teaching resources, so resource input is largely in place. The report notes that AI can continuously record each student question, revision, exercise and feedback; if learning records are scattered across platforms and cannot be saved and integrated across them, even advanced AI can only repeatedly get to know the same student, making a continuous personalized learning journey difficult. This directly affects school procurement standards, data governance requirements of sponsoring bodies, and the data interoperability and certification design of edtech products. The report is think-tank research based on visits and coursework data, and has not become government policy or a mandatory standard. Schools procuring AI platforms will need to include data storage, export, interoperability and privacy protection in their assessments, potentially shifting procurement criteria from feature comparison to data governance capability. Sponsoring bodies and the edtech industry may be pushed to set requirements on student data ownership, data export formats and minimum information security, and to explore a voluntary product certification scheme.