Ho Chi Minh City is planning to offer courses in artificial intelligence (AI) at all secondary and high schools, starting from the 2022-23 academic year.

Nguyen Bao Quoc, deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh Department of Education and Training, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that to implement the city’s 'Smart Education and Lifelong Learning in Ho Chi Minh City' project in the 2021-30 period, the education authorities are building and perfecting a system to manage education, teach knowledge and skills, and check smart evaluation.

Teaching AI at high schools is part of the important project, he added.

Over the past three years, several city schools have been teaching AI to students, but the scale remains small and limited.

In the 2022-23 academic year, Ho Chi Minh City will pilot putting an AI teaching program on the syllabus at secondary and high schools. 

Accordingly, the city will pick five high schools to apply the AI teaching pilot program, while each district will select a secondary school for it.

Students will study AI through informatics and a series of clubs, extracurricular activities and contests for science, legos and robotics.

Apart from the selected schools for the pilot project, other schools can teach AI via voluntary on-demand programs.

The municipal department has told Saigon University to make a study on building an AI teaching program for students.

Based on the result of the program, the department will extend the pilot program and gradually reach students at all secondary and high schools in the city.

To ensure the AI teaching project can run well, the education sector is stepping up preparation for personnel and facilities.

Particularly, the Department of Education and Training has been running AI training courses for IT teachers at high schools, while most city schools are equipped with computer rooms.

In the coming months, the department will also add some functional rooms such as labs to these schools, while such schools should proactively build smart rooms and multi-functional classrooms; buy essential equipment, robots, and automated devices; launch study programs; and offer AI playgrounds to make the teaching go smoothly, said a representative of the department.

Cao Duc Khoa, principal of Huynh Khuong Ninh Secondary School in District 1, said that the students were really interested in studying AI.

“Our school has taught AI through the Robotic and Automation club over the past three years," Khoa said.

“The AI teaching program not only gives students opportunities to experience and foster creation and passion, but also trains them in multiple useful skills, including teamwork, cooperation and sharing.

"As such, the students are excited about the program."

Huynh Khuong Ninh’s AI club attracts students in grades 6-9 thanks to the advanced two-lesson-per-week AI program with modern equipment.

“One of the difficulties facing schools teaching AI is a dearth of IT teachers and teaching equipment which is extremely costly,” Khoa said.

To teach AI, teachers of IT and physics must be trained professionally. 

Due to its modern and integrated operating model, the Huynh Khuong Ninh school has an advantage over other schools in access to AI teachers and equipment, said Khoa.

Also, AI teaching programs at city schools have received support from parents, according to Nguyen Thai Vinh Nguyen, head of the Thu Duc City Bureau of Education and Training.

The education agencies in Thu Duc City will team up with the AI Center-Software Technology Park in Vietnam National University-Ho chi Minh City to start teaching AI to elementary and secondary students in the 2022-23 school year.

The division has offered leaders of schools some survey trips to the AI center to learn more about the teaching program. Besides, some schools have taken their students to the center to explore robot programming.

“The municipal Department of Education and Training issued a dispatch allowing Thu Duc City to roll out an AI teaching program based on clubs or syllabuses. To do so, schools must be encouraged and supported by parents,” Nguyen stated.

Le Hong Phong High School for the Gifted has taught AI to students in specialized classes since the first semester of the 2019-20 school year, said principal Pham Thi Be Hien.

The program equips students with such skills as mathematical modeling, high-level programming and creation, and provides them with mathematics for AI.

All 10th graders are focusing on a basic AI program, while students in grades 11 and 12 are pursuing a professional AI program associated with math for AI, AI programming, and AI application to science studies.

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