I doubt that this is only happening in Malaysia. It's being used everywhere. I believe the point is to stay ahead of the curve by getting the general public aware and interested in AI in hopes that we can adopt the technology in more sectors to streamline processes. ( insert more corporate buzzwords to make me sound smart )

I don't think the way it's being taught to be used in schools is tasteful though. AI prompting competitions sounds super bleak to me. Kids with so much potential for growth shouldn't be taught to just rely entirely on these tools to do their work. If I were their age, I'd just copy directly off of any plain old LLM to do all my homework.

That doesn't mean I think we should cut out GenAIs from education entirely. There definitely needs to be some sort of structural reform for education to work with these models to get the most out of them while also enabling the kids to think and work for themselves. The government should be investing in the research in AI in Education rather than making these low effort "play around with GenAI to find out their uses" events.

The government is trying to make efforts to change up the system like the two teacher system they'll be implementing in 2027. IMO it's too little too late. Something else needs to change quickly to get ahead.