"Tum left! Turn right!" In the information technology (IT) class, Zhang Ruixuan was controlling a robot to move around.
"This is part of our artificial intelligence (AI) courses," said the 10th grader from Beijing 101 Middle School. The school provides AI (人工智能) classes to both junior and senior high school students. Apart from compulsory (必修的) courses that teach basic knowledge, there are also optional (选修的) courses if students want to learn more.
"This year in our compulsory class, we have learned coding (编程) through a programming language called Python," said Zhang. Using Python to code is a basic skill for training AI models. In recent years, Python has been tested in high school graduation exams (高中会考) in places like Beijing, Jiangsu and Anhui.
In fact, having AI education in schools has become a growing trend (趋势) in many places, ★ . In 2020 Zhejiang added AI education into textbooks from Grade 5 in primary school all the way to senior high. In the city of Wenzhou, the government is planning to build 1, 000 Al experimental schools by 2025.
"With the development of technology, our textbooks have been changing all the time," said Shang Yin, an IT teacher from Beijing 101 Middle School." From typing to using Word and Excel, and then today's coding and AI, the courses are keeping up with the times and teaching students necessary skills. "In the future, there will be more jobs where Al knowledge is needed. Even in daily life, people may need to understand things like ChatGPT and the internet of things (物联网). Al education will become increasingly important, Shang added.