Canada needs a national AI literacy strategy to help students navigate AI

Canada Standard

6 days ago

With students' use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools on the rise in Canada and globally, reports of cheating and unethical behaviors are making headlines.
One recent study indicates that 78 per cent of Canadian students have used generative AI to help with assignments or study tasks. In China, authorities have even shut down AI apps during nationwide exams to prevent cheating.
Students seem unprepared to navigate this new world and educators are unsure how to handle it. This is a problem Canada and other countries can't afford to ignore.
The support structures and policies to guide students' and educators' responsible use of AI are often insufficient in Canadian schools. In a recent study, Canada ranked 44th in AI training and literacy out of 47 countries, and 28th among 30 advanced economies. Despite growing reliance on these technologies at homes and in the classrooms, Canada lacks a unified AI literacy strategy in K-12 education.
Without co-ordinated action, this gap threatens to widen existing inequalities and leave both learners and educators vulnerable. Canadian schools need a national AI literacy strategy that provides a framework for teaching students about AI tools and how to use them responsibly.
AI literacy is defined as:
"An individual's ability to clearly explain how AI technologies work and impact society, as well as to use them in an ethical and responsible manner and to effectively communicate and collaborate with them in any setting."
Acknowledging its importance, scholars and international organizations have been developing AI literacy frameworks. UNESCO has developed AI competency frameworks for students and teachers, highlighting key capabilities they should acquire to navigate AI implications.
More recently, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the European Commission released their joint draft AI Literacy Framework for primary and secondary education. This framework defines AI literacy as the technical knowledge, durable skills and future-ready attitudes required to thrive in a world influenced by AI.
The framework aims to empower learners to engage with, create with, manage and design AI, while critically evaluating its benefits, risks and ethical implications.
AI literacy equips learners to understand and navigate the pervasive influence of AI in their daily lives. It fosters critical thinking skills to assess AI outputs for misinformation and bias.
AI literacy also enables students to make safe and informed decisions about when and how to use AI, preventing habits that compromise academic integrity. In addition, student knowledge of AI's technical foundations demystifies AI, dispelling misconceptions that it is all-knowing, and highlights its capabilities and limitations.
Furthermore, AI-literate students are better able to develop an ethical and human-centred mindset as they learn to consider AI's social and environmental impacts, including issues of transparency, accountability, privacy and the environmental cost of AI systems.
AI literacy prepares students to collaborate effectively and ethically with AI tools (for example, with writing) and helps them understand how to delegate only certain tasks to AI without cognitive offloading that may be detrimental at various developmental stages.
Finally, AI literacy aims to ensure inclusive access to AI learning environments for all students, regardless of background, status or ability.
In Canada, some provinces and school boards are moving ahead with AI integration, while others offer very little teacher training and resources to do so.
Some universities and community organizations are also taking the lead in building AI literacy by providing curricula, resources and training to teachers and students.
These scattered efforts, while appreciated, lead to AI learning opportunities that are often ad-hoc or extracurricular. Without national or province-wide requirements, many students - especially in marginalized communities and under-resourced schools - may graduate high school with no exposure to AI concepts at all, worsening the digital divide.
To put Canada's situation in context, it is useful to compare with other countries that are implementing or proposing national AI education initiatives. As part of its National AI Strategy, Singapore launched a partnership to strengthen students' AI literacy, building on earlier initiatives that focused on teacher training.
In China, the Ministry of Education issued systematic guidelines to promote AI education in primary and secondary schools. Similarly, the United Arab Emirates introduced AI classes into its curricula starting in the primary years.
More recently, the United States established an AI framework and a task force aimed at "building essential AI literacy from an early age to maintain a competitive edge in global technology development and prepare students for an AI-driven economy."
Canada, in comparison to these examples, has strengths in its bottom-up innovation but lacks a guiding vision. Canada needs a co-ordinated strategy that leverages federal-provincial collaboration through a unifying framework, shared resources and a common baseline of AI knowledge that every Canadian student should acquire.
A meaningful AI literacy strategy must begin in the classroom with age-appropriate content. Students can start with the technical foundations and advance to think critically about AI's limitations, ethical issues and social implications.
It's important that this content is woven across subjects and presented in ways that reflect the cultural and social contexts of learners.
Equally essential is supporting educators. Teachers need practical, research-informed professional development and teaching toolkits that equip them to guide students through both the opportunities and risks of AI.
To make these efforts sustainable and equitable, a national strategy must also include policy directions, regulations for the tech industry, community outreach programs and intentional opportunities for collaboration between various stakeholders (researchers, policymakers, school boards, teacher education programs and so on).
Whether you think AI is a good or bad thing, the fact is it's here. This is not a call to incorporate AI tools in schools. It is a call to make Canadian students aware of its abilities and implications. Our kids need to learn about this technology and how to use it responsibly.