Concerns grow over AI digital textbooks for students

[Anchor]

As much as there are expectations for AI digital textbooks, concerns are also growing.

There are indications that the already problematic decline in students' literacy will worsen, and their concentration will decrease.

Reporter Lee Yoo-min will continue with the expected side effects of AI digital textbooks and possible solutions.

[Report]

The government and the education sector expect that AI digital textbooks will particularly help the learning of middle and lower-tier students.

Unlike existing textbooks that are tailored to the average level of students, it allows for supplementary education that matches individual learning speeds.

[Im Cheol-il/Professor, Department of Education, Seoul National University: "There have been reports that it helps 'slow learners,' so teachers who teach math and English are definitely looking forward to it...."]

However, alongside these expectations, there are also significant concerns.

The worry is that students' literacy and concentration will actually decline, and countries in Northern Europe, which have already used digital textbooks before us, are trending towards reintroducing paper textbooks and handwriting practice for the same reasons.

[Im Jeong-hee/Secretary General, Education Hope Network: "There is a responsibility to carefully refine digital education policies by learning from overseas cases, but the Ministry of Education appears to be merely pushing forward with uncommunicative enforcement and a race against time."]

The lack of preparation on the ground and concerns over personal information leaks are also challenges that need to be overcome, as frontline teachers show movements to refuse the use of digital textbooks.

The Ministry of Education has decided to exclude the Korean language and technology/home economics subjects from the application of digital textbooks for now, and to adjust the introduction timing of some subjects to minimize side effects.

This is KBS News, Lee Yoo-min.