In 2023, the South Korean Ministry of Education (MOE) announced the nationwide implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) digital textbooks from March 2025 for English, Math, and Information Science subjects in grades 3, 4, 6, and 9. Going beyond digital textbooks, - digital versions of printed textbooks with multimedia and interactive features (Im, 2024; MOE, 2012; Song et al., 2015) - AI digital textbook features are expected to automatically analyze learners’ progress and personalize content (MOE, 2023). Since South Korea would be the very first in the world to use AI digital textbooks nationally, it is significant to assess what change it will entail. South Korean education is a unique centralized system (Kim, 2004; Kim, 2024), where teachers follow a standardized national curriculum. Along with rapid technological development and the usage of AI digital textbooks in South Korea, the aim of this policy content analysis research is to trace the MOE’s narratives on teachers’ roles and what contexts are affecting those, answering RQ1. Considering the support given to teachers, what are the teachers’ roles regarding AI digital textbooks? RQ2. What are the sociopolitical factors that influenced the policy texts? Responding to these questions will be foundational to elaborating on the intricacy of MOE policies and expanding the scope of research to understand those from the teachers’ perspective.
According to Krippendorff (2019), content analysis is a method to analyze text in relation to certain contexts. Specifically, the study does qualitative content analysis, acknowledging that text does not have a single meaning (Krippendorff, 2019). Considering Ogunode and Omolola (2024)’s definition of policy as “written or unwritten statements that guide present and future thinking, initiatives, actions, and decisions of managers” (p. 100), MOE’s annual plan briefing documents, 5 roadmap/policy task documents, and 63 press releases from the last five years (2020-2025) have been used for this content analysis. The policy documents were analyzed following the Organizational Policy Analysis Questions suggested by Cardno (2018, p. 632), which focuses on the aspects of content, text, and consequence holistically. I was able to generate notes answering the guiding questions for each document in the timeline.
Findings show that there was a visible change before and after 2023. Prior to 2023, teachers’ role in responding to AI integration in education was not a focus. ‘Roadmap for Digital Human Resource (디지털 인재양성 종합방안)’ in 2020 emphasizes ‘expanding SW / AI education in K-12 level.’ MOE acknowledged the emergence of AI and mandated teachers to teach AI in the existing software (SW) curriculum with extended instruction hours. Meanwhile, ‘Roadmap for Enhancing Digital-Based Education Innovation (디지털 기반 교육혁신 역량강화 지원방안)’ from 2024 states “Teachers, who are the experts of each classroom and subject, should first understand the digital transformation and actively try innovating their classroom is the core goal,” (MOE, 2024, p.1), making sure teachers' technological skills are competent to implement AI contents and digital textbooks. With that, teachers were positioned to be active agents in AI education and AI digital textbook implementation. ‘Education Technology Promotion Plan (에듀테크 진흥방안)’ in 2023 launched the TOUCH (Teachers Who Upgrade Classroom with Tech) initiative, where selected teachers become peer mentors, and the online platform ‘Knowledge Spring (지식샘터)’ for teachers to discuss and share resources around AI and education. The 2025 MOE annual plan also includes different aspects of AI literacy, including strategies to integrate it into existing subjects and the ethics of AI.
On top of the curriculum revision and emergence of AI, an important context to consider is the political scene, as 2022 is when the new president, Seok-Yeol Yoon, from the opposition party, took over from the previous president, Jae-In Moon, and appointed a new minister of MOE. The AIDT project has been launched and expedited during Yoon’s term. However, after his presidency was suspended after his arrest under martial law, the AI digital textbooks were almost discarded in December 2024 by the congress, but gained their status and plan back on track again in January 2025.
This emphasizes how South Korea’s educational policy is susceptible to the political environment, with the centralized MOE and curriculum system. Especially considering this context is significant, as Kim (2015) pointed out that teachers’ confusion and lack of familiarity with digital textbooks stemmed from frequent turnarounds on digital textbook application plans by each MOE governance under the presidency (p. 125). With the current plan to fully implement AI digital textbooks for all K-12 subjects by 2028, onboarding teachers and their skills are crucial to prepare for this change.
With this research, in the short term, the public and teachers would be able to understand the trend of AI in education. However, there have been persistent issues around MOE in general, including a lack of communication from the government about the needs and benefits of using novel technologies (Kim, 2015, p.117; Kim et al., 2024, p. 208), and not leading to teachers’ longitudinal and meaningful pedagogical shift (Shin et al., 2014, p. 18). Therefore, based on this study, I ultimately aim to study teachers’ perceptions about those policies and their impact. Additionally, I hope to raise awareness among policymakers about the importance of incorporating teachers and their voices into the policy process. This connects well to the AECT theme around the future of educational technology, as this research provides international insight on how the South Korean government and teachers are facing the recent implementation of AI digital textbooks, and sets the foundation to continue monitoring its progress along with social change with AI development and political settings.
In the session, I will provide a comprehensive introduction to AI digital textbooks and the Korean Ministry of Education’s national curriculum using visual aids. This will enable the audience to grasp the concept of the South Korean AI digital textbook and the need for content analysis. After the presentation, I will give the audience time to reflect in small groups about what they knew about digital textbooks in the past and what surprised them about this South Korean case.
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