AI education to begin from Class 3 in schools from 2026-27: Ministry of Education

Beginning with the 2026–2027 school year, artificial intelligence (AI) will be taught in India to all students in Class 3 and beyond.

To make sure that teachers and students are ready for the technologically advanced future, the Ministry of Education has stated that a thorough framework for incorporating AI into the classroom is presently being established.

“We need to move fast so that students and teachers are properly aligned with this technology over the next two to three years. The challenge will be to reach out to over one crore teachers across the country and orient them in imparting AI-related education,” School Education Secretary Sanjay Kumar said, as reported by PTI.

He added, “The CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) is developing the framework for AI integration across grades.”

According to Kumar, a pilot project is already being carried out to train teachers in using AI tools for lesson planning. “A pilot project is already underway for teachers to use AI tools to prepare lesson plans. Our objective is to prepare both the learner and the teacher for the digital economy,” he added.

AI is currently offered as a skill topic for students in Class 6 and up through a 15-hour module in more than 18,000 CBSE-affiliated schools. For students in Classes 9 through 12, AI is an elective. The projected extension to younger classes represents a significant change in India’s strategy for preparing kids for the future by fostering digital literacy and future-ready abilities early on.

At the launch of an NITI Aayog report on AI and jobs, which emphasized how employment is evolving in the AI era, Kumar made the revelation. According to the paper, eight million new employment might be produced if the proper ecosystem is established, but about two million old jobs could be lost.

The research also suggested that the current India AI Mission and the future India AI Talent Mission work closely together.

In order to create a supportive ecosystem with sufficient computational capacity and data availability, it also called for collaborations between academics, government, and industry. It stated that this will support the development of the upcoming generation of AI researchers and innovators.

According to the NITI Aayog report, which emphasized the need for immediate action, sustained collaboration between the government, business community, and academic institutions as well as coordinated leadership will be essential to India’s future in the AI economy. India has the ability to protect its workforce and become a global leader in influencing the direction of AI if it implements this plan on time.