Australian education departments are taking different approaches to AI in schools, from outright bans on take-home assignments in New South Wales to a custom classroom chatbot in South Australia - and the split reflects a broader debate about whether AI helps or hurts student learning.
The moves come after the federal government released a framework for ethical AI use in schools in 2023. Since then, each state has interpreted that guidance differently, creating a patchwork of policies for students, teachers, and parents to navigate.
In NSW, the government has proposed banning unsupervised take-home assignments for year 11 and 12 students completing the Higher School Certificate. The push followed more than 1,000 recorded cheating cases in 2025 and growing concern over AI-written essays.
What the research says about AI and learning
Leslie Loble, a professor in AI and Education at the University of Technology Sydney, said the consequences of AI use in learning go beyond cheating. The problem, she argued, is that AI shortcuts the process by which information becomes long-term knowledge.
"The process of learning relies on converting the working memory of new information into retained memory and knowledge," Loble said. "AI is disrupting that process and keeping us much more in surface learning, not the deep retained knowledge upon which we build understanding."
She said research points to growing dependency on AI tools, and that short-term boosts in answers have a cost. "What we're seeing in the research is that we're increasing dependency, and it becomes a vicious cycle because we're not converting that information into long-term knowledge."
Loble said the NSW proposal was a step in the right direction, but warned there was "a basket of risks". Still, she acknowledged evidence that AI tools can help students who are falling behind catch up in class.
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South Australia embraces AI in classrooms
South Australia has gone against the grain by welcoming AI into public schools. The state government partnered with Microsoft to develop EdChat, a custom generative AI tool for public high schools - the first deployment of its kind in Australia.
After trialling the software, the SA government said the broader rollout would support safe and productive use of the technology.
Loble pointed to EdChat as an example of good design. "The tool challenges the student through further questioning and providing some information but not the answer, to essentially have a much more robust approach to learning built into the tools," she said.
"These are examples of how you can have design standards that will give us greater confidence of the technology in schools."
The state also announced a royal commission into AI, beginning in October, according to a Department of Education spokesperson. Teachers in South Australia continue to use a range of assessment types - oral, written, multimodal, and performance modes - to collect evidence of learning in multiple ways.
Victoria sets screen time limits
Victoria relies on the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) to set academic integrity standards. Students must submit their own work, acknowledge resources used, and refrain from plagiarism or cheating. Individual schools adjudicate suspected AI breaches.
A VCAA spokesperson said the authority requires work to be the student's own, and noted that "the vast majority of work students do to complete their VCE certificate is already completed under supervision in class."
"The best integrity control is our teachers - they know their students and monitor their progress as they complete take-home tasks to make sure their work is their own."
Victoria is also leading the way on screen time restrictions. From term 1, 2027, all state primary schools will enforce daily screen time caps and device rules, including a ban on students bringing their own devices to school from Prep to year 6.
Loble said it was worth asking whether this should be a national standard. "Screen time caps, age standards, should those be national standards? These are the sorts of things that ministers should be considering."
For more on how these policies fit into broader AI adoption in schools, AI for Education tracks developments in classroom tools and learning optimization.
What other states are doing
Queensland requires all senior students to complete an academic integrity course. The Department of Education said digital tools, including emerging AI, are used in classrooms "where the they add value to student value to student learning," and schools maintain a balance between digital and non-digital learning.
Western Australia, Tasmania, and the Northern Territory have adopted the federal government's Australian Framework for Generative AI in Schools.
A WA Department of Education spokesperson said developing an understanding of the ethical use of AI is part of the curriculum from pre-primary to year 12. Schools with at year 11 and 12 students must implement a senior secondary assessment policy covering authentication of student work, including cheating, collusion, plagiarism, and unacknowledged use of AI applications.
The NT government allows AI use under the federal framework but empowers individual public schools to develop terms own processes to meet territory expectations, with limits applied at the individual school level.
Tasmania, meanwhile, has taken a stricter line with a spokesperson said AI apps and websites have been blocked for all students on departmental devices and networks, alongside an academic integrity guide for principals and teachers.
Loble warned that taken programs risks of low-risk use but said the approach could work to the student's benefit. "What we are seeing now is widespread use of AI by teachers and students," she said. "So it's become so much more integral."
She called on "Australia has taken the lead globally in setting standards in social media technology, we could certainly set standards for education technology."
Why this matters for education professionals
For teachers and administrators, the state-by-state split means there is no national standard for AI use in schools. The choice - between banning take-home assignments or building custom AI tools for the classroom - affects what is expected of staff, how learning is assessed, and how students are prepared for a workforce that will the same tools. AI for Teachers Courses offers one path to developing the knowledge needed to meet these demands..
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