Shandong Issues Teaching Guideline for AI Literacy Education in Primary and Secondary Schools

The Shandong Provincial Department of Education has issued a teaching guideline for AI literacy education in primary and secondary schools, setting out basic principles, competency frameworks, learning content, academic quality standards and teaching requirements. It states that teachers are responsible for instructional design and students are the subjects of learning, with AI tools limited to supporting inquiry, prompting thinking and optimizing feedback; teachers are barred from using AI to replace lesson preparation and teaching, and students from using it to ghostwrite assignments or projects. Class hours are set at no fewer than 6 per year for grades 1-2 and no fewer than 8 per year for grades 3-9, with high school students taking the elective module Introduction to AI.

The guideline moves AI literacy education from scattered pilots to a province-wide curriculum system, directly changing class-hour arrangements, curriculum implementation plans and after-school service structures in Shandong schools while drawing clear red lines for human-AI collaboration. For teachers, responsibility for lesson preparation and teaching is made explicit, with AI tools confined to supporting inquiry, prompting thinking and optimizing feedback. For product providers, the minimum of 6 to 8 class hours per school year in compulsory education and at least one AI-related after-school service program per school create predictable in-school demand. The guideline does not provide supporting teacher training, funding or evaluation rules, so actual implementation still needs observation. Shandong compulsory education schools must meet annual minimum class hours, include AI literacy education in curriculum implementation plans, and provide at least one after-school service program with AI content per school. Teacher use of AI tools is limited to supporting inquiry, prompting thinking and optimizing feedback, with direct replacement of lesson preparation and teaching explicitly prohibited, tightening in-school product procurement and usage rules.