AI, including ChatGPT, will be allowed in all Australian schools from 2024 after education ministers formally backed a national framework guiding the use of the new technology.

Revised by the national AI task force, the framework was unanimously adopted at an education ministers meeting last week. It will be released in the coming week. 

The federal education minister of the country, Jason Clare, told the Today Show that ChatGPT was “not going away” and had become similar to the “calculator or the internet”. 

Since the release of ChatGPT last year, Australia’s education sector has grappled with how to respond to the technology, from embracing it as a learning tool to blanket bans and returning to pen-and-paper exams.

Every state and territory, excluding South Australia, moved to temporarily restrict ChatGPT in public schools as concerns mounted about privacy and plagiarism.

But in a communique released on Friday morning, ministers confirmed that state and territories and non-government schooling sectors would work with their education systems to implement the framework from term one next year. 

The adoption includes a $1m investment to Education Services Australia- a not-for-profit educational technology company owned by federal, state and territory education departments to establish “product expectations” of generative AI technology. 

The body has been leasing with education product vendors since the release of ChatGPT, and an estimated 90% would move AI into their existing technology within the coming years.

Speaking at an inquiry into the use of generative AI last month, a Department of Education spokesperson, Julie Birmingham, said while the technology was developing quickly, Australia had been leading the way in its response.

She said that early research showed AI could provide intelligent tutoring systems, better personalisation, more targeted learning materials, and help educate at-risk students.