South Korea's AI digital textbook was a bold experiment the world was watching. Yet within less than a year of its 2025 launch, it lost its legal status and is on the path to being scrapped. What went wrong?
From 2026, school violence records now apply to all university admissions tracks in South Korea. Ten national universities rejected 162 applicants based on these records. The intent is clear β but the reality has turned out more complicated than expected.
The 2026 Suneung entered its second year under a policy banning so-called 'killer questions' β ultra-hard problems that require university-level thinking and drive students toward expensive private tutoring. Meanwhile, an even larger structural overhaul is set for 2028.
South Korea's ambitious AI digital textbook initiative β once hailed as a world first β has hit a major turning point with the change of government. Why did the policy stumble, and what can the world learn from it?