BEIJING: With schools set to reopen after the winter vacation, students will return to their classrooms with rapidly evolving artificial intelligence tools that have become efficient assistants for those rushing to complete their assignments. But the trend has also sparked concerns about AI’s growing role in education.
With just a few simple prompts, students can use AI tools such as DeepSeek or Kimi to tackle their schoolwork. Typical assignments in primary and secondary schools — ranging from solving math problems and writing essays to designing posters — can now be easily handled with generative AI.
“AI tools have saved me a lot of time tutoring my child,” said Su Min, a 40-year-old mother of a sixth grader in Beijing. “I learn how to solve problems with AI and then teach my daughter.”
However, Su emphasized that her daughter does not use AI tools for schoolwork on her own.
“Simply copying the results generated by AI is not beneficial,” she said. Chen Zhuo, a 16-year-old 11th grader from Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, said she started using AI out of curiosity.
“I used AI to generate a framework for my essay and then refined it myself,” she said. “But I found it lacked emotional depth and was disconnected from current events. “While it may lead to reliance, I don’t use it for my math homework because copying answers from AI is meaningless. Ultimately, I need to learn how to solve problems on my own.”
Parents on social media are now sharing their experiences with using AI to help their children with their assignments, particularly those they see as unimportant. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
