Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre has announced that generative AI tools are now off-limits for elementary school students across the country, effective from the new school year beginning in late August.
The ban applies to students in first through seventh grade, covering ages 6 to 13, and the decision makes Norway one of the first countries in the world to formally prohibit AI use at that level of education.
This means students in lower secondary school, aged 14 to 16, can use generative AI only under a teacher’s direct supervision, while older students aged 17 to 19 are encouraged to use AI tools responsibly as preparation for their future education and careers. The prime minister claims that this policy is not a blanket rejection of AI in education, and that it is more of an age-structured approach that delays access until students have already built the foundational skills that the government believes AI would otherwise shortcut.
At a press conference announcing the decision, Støre said, “The most important thing in school is that our children learn to read, write, and do mathematics.” His government also announced plans to propose legislation to increase funding for printed books in classrooms, replacing the computer tablets that have been central to Norwegian education for over a decade.
A Country Walking Back Its Own Digital Experiment
Back in 2016, Norway announced a plan to issue a tablet to every student starting at the age of five, and the results were devastating. The country watched its literacy rate decline dramatically and its test scores tank. Between 2018 and 2022, Norwegian 15-year-olds lost 33 points in mathematics, the second-largest drop among Nordic nations and behind Iceland’s 36-point fall. In fact, Norway’s mathematics scores in the PISA 2022 cycle were the lowest the country had recorded since it began participating in the assessment.
Hence, this ban seems to be a government completing a reversal on a system it has been building toward for years. The country that was once widely held up as a model for digital classroom adoption is now methodically removing each layer of technology it introduced
What the Smartphone Ban Already Proved
Norway banned smartphones from schools in 2024, a move that produced measurable results. A study by researcher Sara Abrahamsson examining more than 400 Norwegian middle schools found that the ban led to reduced bullying, improved grades, and a roughly 60% drop in visits to psychology specialists, with the effects particularly pronounced among girls.
The country’s track record with the smartphone ban suggests the approach can work, at least within the controlled environment of a classroom. And so, it seems Norwegian authorities are drawing a direct line between that experience and the new AI policy.
Where AI Fits Into Norway’s Broader Tech Restrictions
This AI ban does not stand alone, as Norway is also preparing to restrict children’s access to social media. The government announced in April that it would introduce legislation to ban social media for children under 16, with the bill expected to go to parliament by the end of the year. This proposal mirrors Australia’s world-first social media ban for under-16s, which came into effect in December 2025.
The U.S. has also been slowly making moves to limit the amount of time kids can spend with AI chatbots. The Senate and House have been discussing the GUARD Act, a bill that would require AI companies to implement an age-verification process and ban them from providing chatbots to minors. The bill has advanced past the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee but has yet to be voted on by the entire U.S. Senate.
However, Norway’s policy is structurally different from what other governments are debating. While most countries are still arguing about guidance, parental controls, and platform-level restrictions, Norway has gone straight to a classroom ban enforced at the school level that covers the full 6-to-13 age range.
The Real Question the Policy Leaves Open
A school-hours ban does nothing to limit what children do at home, especially with how generative AI is accessible on any device with an internet connection. And no country has yet solved the problem of enforcing age restrictions on AI tools outside of institutional settings. But Norway is betting that the classroom is the right place to start.
Whether the AI ban produces the same measurable gains as the smartphone ban is still unknown. For now, what Norway’s approach does clearly establish is that governments can draw hard lines around children’s access to AI tools without waiting for long-term research and studies to confirm the damage first.
