Norway's National Tiered Restriction on Generative AI in Primary and Secondary Schools

On 19 June 2026, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store and the Ministry of Education and Research (Kunnskapsdepartementet) announced a national, age-tiered restriction on generative AI use in schools, taking effect at the start of the 2026-27 school year in late August 2026. The stated rationale is that unsupervised AI use lets young children skip foundational steps in learning to read, write and do arithmetic.

The policy aims to prevent young pupils from bypassing foundational literacy and numeracy skills through unsupervised generative-AI use, while allowing older students to gradually build AI competence under supervision ahead of further education and work.

Pupils in grades 1-7 (roughly ages 6-13) will generally not be permitted to use generative AI tools at all; students aged 14-16 may use AI only under teacher supervision; students aged 17 and older are encouraged to learn to use AI responsibly. The government also said it would increase funding for printed books in classrooms, reversing the tablet-centred approach schools have followed since around 2010.

The restriction applies nationally across three age tiers -- an effective ban for ages 6-13, supervised use for ages 14-16, and encouraged responsible use for 17+ -- alongside increased funding for printed books. Guidance for upper-secondary schools remained pending as of early August 2026.

As of this write-up the AI restriction had not yet taken effect, so no independent evaluation of its impact on learning outcomes exists. The announcement follows Norway's 2024 smartphone ban, which subsequent reporting has linked to fewer bullying incidents, higher grades and fewer student visits to mental-health services -- but those are outcomes of the smartphone policy, not (yet) of this AI restriction.