Half of German 15-year-olds use AI chatbots for school at least once a week. This contributes to the new Pisa shock, says OECD education director Schleicher in an interview.
Child with robot (archive): “AI provides answers that sound convincing, fluid and plausible – even if they are wrong.” Photo: imago/Future Image
Berlin. Are students' performance slipping due to the use of artificial intelligence (AI), social media and cell phones? This question is being hotly debated after the new Pisa shock.
OECD Education Director Andreas Schleicher sees AI as a central factor for the weak results. But that is not an argument against its use, he said in an interview with Handelsblatt.
Schleicher demanded that Germany must be ambitious when it comes to digitizing schools. It's not about digitizing yesterday's school, but rather reconfiguring space, time, personnel and technology.
Read the whole interview here:
Mr. Schleicher, German students have historically performed poorly in the Pisa study. But there is also a negative trend in other OECD countries. Can this be clearly attributed to the use of AI, social media and cell phones?
Certainly not only, but we have to rethink digitalization. German students already spend an average of 1.7 hours per school day using digital devices for learning purposes. At the same time, one in three reports that digital devices are often distracting in class - and scores eight Pisa points less than a student who reports that they are not distracted.
What has to happen?
Technology is neither the enemy nor the solution. What matters is what pedagogy makes of it. This is particularly clear with AI. Half of German 15-year-olds already use AI chatbots for school purposes at least once a week. More than a third have texts summarized or writing tasks prepared. Only nine percent practically never use AI for the tasks examined by Pisa. The crucial question is: Are they using AI in a way that makes them smarter - or just in a way that makes school easier to manage?
Are there any insights into this?
So far, the picture is sobering: students who use AI perform worse on average than those who do without it. This is not an argument against AI. It is an argument for a different pedagogy: AI must not replace mental work, but rather make it more sophisticated.
Should more schools limit smartphone use so students can focus more on learning?
Yes. School is one of the few spaces we can design and in which we can develop the human skills that differentiate us from AI.
What does school have to do these days?
Schools must enable young people to think independently and act together with others, with empathy, at work and as citizens. Schools must help young people develop a clear moral compass: a sense of right and wrong, an understanding of where the limits of our individual and collective actions lie, as well as the ability to build sustainable relationships and to judge responsibly even in difficult situations. If education does not vigorously strengthen and protect these values and human capabilities, then AI could end up undermining the foundations of our societies. That's why we shouldn't leave this space to smartphones. I also consider a smartphone ban to be completely compatible with the targeted use of digital technologies with educational value.
In other successful countries, technologies have a permanent place in schools. What's going better?
We don't get fit by watching sports. We get fit by doing sports ourselves. It's the same with learning. Learning requires mental effort. Learning requires friction. Learning often takes effort. That’s why it depends on how teachers use AI.
What exactly is important?
If AI becomes the convenient route to a finished answer, it will undermine learning. On the other hand, if teachers use AI to challenge students to compare explanations, uncover errors in reasoning, sharpen arguments and ask better questions, then AI can become an extraordinary accelerator. This is exactly where successful education systems come into play.
However, digitization is progressing slowly in German schools.
Germany should be ambitious here. There's no point in digitizing yesterday's school: it's about reconfiguring space, time, staff and technology to create new learning experiences. And there is reason for optimism. Germany's students are curious, many believe in their own ability to learn, and the system continues to produce strong performance despite all the setbacks.
When reading, however, a downward trend becomes particularly clear. Young people read too quickly. They skim instead of understanding. You answer quickly, but incorrectly.
Yes, and it's about much more than just understanding the text. One number in particular made me think. Almost every second German 15-year-old says: When evidence and gut feeling collide, gut feeling should win. Of course we see similar things in other countries too. But in an AI world this is extremely dangerous. AI delivers answers that sound convincing, fluid and plausible - even if they are wrong.
So what should be done?
If you want to master the future, you have to learn not to follow the most plausible answer, but rather the best-founded one. The problem here is not that German teachers teach too little physics, chemistry or biology. The problem is that too few students learn how science works: asking questions, allowing doubts, examining evidence, testing hypotheses. Too often we teach science like religion: we explain a theory, let it be practiced and at the end we check whether the given answer is correct. But that’s exactly what AI can do better.
The school's task is no longer to reproduce ready-made knowledge. It must enable young people to examine, question and re-evaluate knowledge.
So a new mindset is needed in the education system?
Stagnation in education reforms means regression in results in an increasingly demanding environment. What was good enough yesterday will no longer be enough tomorrow: not for a working world that constantly demands new skills; not for an AI world in which we have to redefine what humans can do better than machines. And not for a polarized society in which the ability to build bridges determines cohesion.
Education Minister Karin Prien has admitted that Germany was slow to adapt to an increasingly heterogeneous student body. That the problems also have something to do with immigration. What went wrong?
Immigration is a major challenge for many education systems, no question about it. A mistake was to concentrate immigration in a few schools with low performance requirements, primarily secondary schools. This made the challenges difficult to solve. The early funding also had difficulty getting off the ground, even though a lot has happened here in the meantime. A mandatory kindergarten with targeted language support is particularly important for children with a migrant background.
Are there any other omissions?
Too often we have believed that problems will solve themselves. They don't do that. If we don't quickly help students with a migrant background to catch up with targeted support, it will be difficult. In addition, we have prepared teachers too slowly and insufficiently for these challenges.
What about educationally disadvantaged children?
Children from privileged families will almost always find open doors in life. Their parents can pay for tutoring, open networks and give them advice. For a disadvantaged child there is often only one door - a good school.
What role do the parents play?
An example from Pisa: Just the question “What did you do at school today?” is associated with a performance advantage of significantly more than one school year - even when social and economic differences are taken into account. And here comes the worrying realization: While support from teachers has increased overall, support from families has declined sharply in Germany since the last Pisa survey in 2022.
What follows from this?
Perhaps after all the debates about digital devices, one of the most important technologies for good learning has remained surprisingly old-fashioned: a teacher who cares, a family who provides support, and a young person who knows: "There is someone who cares not only about what I learn - but also about who I will become."
Will Germany get better at Pisa again?
Germany has never been a country lacking in engineering skills or institutional strength. Germany has reinvented itself after a devastating war. It has transformed an industrial society into a leading export nation. After reunification, it integrated millions of people. And when Germany decides that something really matters, it gets results. The question is not whether Germany can do better at Pisa - but whether it has the courage to do so.
