Safeguards and Roadmap for Introducing and Monitoring AI Use by Primary School Students
2026-05-06 · Parliament 15
Several MPs (Charlene Chen, Kenneth Tiong, David Hoe and others) jointly questioned MOE on the safeguards and roadmap for introducing AI from primary school. Education Minister Desmond Lee answered four questions together, setting out MOE's "Four Learns" framework — learn about AI, learn to use AI, learn with AI and, most importantly, learn beyond AI. The calibrated roadmap: Primary 1–3 covers AI literacy only (awareness of AI's presence) with no work requiring direct AI use; from Primary 4, once pupils have foundational literacy, numeracy and executive-functioning skills, they may use purpose-built educational AI tools with built-in guardrails under teacher supervision (e.g. the writing assistant LEA and Maths LEA in the Student Learning Space), which are designed not to spoon-feed answers and to redirect off-task pupils "Socratically". A mandatory 10-hour "Code for Fun" programme (coding, computational thinking, AI basics) starts from Primary 4, with optional five-hour "AI for Fun" modules on generative AI and computer vision. Pupil data is anonymised and not used to train external models; commercial off-the-shelf tools require checks that inputs contain no personally identifiable information. On research, A*STAR's SG-LEADS longitudinal study (data collection from 2027) will track how children's AI use affects learning and well-being, alongside short-term school-based studies. Kenneth Tiong pressed MOE using Sweden's Karolinska Institute conclusion that "digital tools impair rather than enhance student learning" and Sweden's 2023 reversal of digitalisation (over €200m to reintroduce physical textbooks); Desmond Lee replied that Sweden had gone all-digital from age five and then fully reverted to analog, whereas Singapore takes a blended approach — keeping physical textbooks and teacher-centric teaching, treating AI as a tool, and crucially distinguishing general-purpose AI from purpose-built educational AI, since failing to do so would risk the wrong policy of not using AI at all. On parental opt-out: SLS classroom tools that are part of teaching cannot be opted out of, but externally-brought-in tools requiring consent will not be used without it. Eileen Chong raised the "equity paradox" — that more disadvantaged children with less adult supervision at home may lean on AI more, eroding the very cognitive development it is meant to support; the Minister called this an "evergreen" concern, to be met through internalised AI literacy and home-school-community partnership.
