Switzerland's educa.ch — a Federal-Cantonal Legal Framework for AI in Schools

Switzerland's decentralised education system, in which 26 cantons each run their own schools, created a need for shared legal clarity as AI tools began entering classrooms. educa.ch — a specialist agency jointly run by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SBFI) and the Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (EDK) — took on this coordinating role, rather than leaving each canton or vendor to build its own governance framework in isolation.

In August 2024, educa.ch published "Rechtliche Auslegeordnung zur Entwicklung und Nutzung von KI im Bildungsbereich," a legal analysis covering four AI use cases in schools (personalised learning/AI assistance, school administration, assessment, and future applications) against Switzerland's revised Federal Act on Data Protection (nFADP), in force since September 2023. It was followed in January 2025 by dedicated guidance on secondary use of pupil data by AI-tool vendors, clarifying processing roles and consent requirements for cantons and school operators procuring third-party AI services.

In December 2025, the Conference of Cantonal Governments (KdK) published its own cross-sectoral stocktake of AI regulation in the cantons, situating education alongside health and public administration. Because both instruments are advisory rather than binding law, actual canton-by-canton adoption and enforcement are not centrally measured — a real limitation acknowledged by observers — and cantons remain free to legislate independently, so consistency across the Confederation cannot yet be verified.

Read the full analysis: https://www.educa.ch/en