No Direct AI for Preschoolers and Parental Consent for Under-13s: What Portugal's Draft Rules on AI in Schools Propose

Portugal's Ministério da Educação, Ciência e Inovação (Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation) opened a public consultation on Thursday on its first national guidance for artificial intelligence in schools. The draft was written by the Instituto de Educação, Qualidade e Avaliação (Institute of Education, Quality and Evaluation, EduQA). It covers preschool, primary and secondary education in state and private schools alike.

Its starting point is that AI belongs in a lesson only when it widens learning, and never when it takes over the pupil's own thinking or the teacher's judgement.

What changes by age

• Preschool: children should not use AI tools directly or on their own; only the teacher operates a tool, occasionally, with the group.
• Years 1 to 4: use is led by the teacher, limited to tools the school has approved, and must not depend on pupils opening accounts.
• Years 5 to 9: pupils can work more independently, but before the age of 13 an activity should not require a personal account, and using an AI tool needs the prior consent of parents or guardians.
• Secondary school: more autonomy within the teacher's rules, with pupils expected to check sources and say how they used AI.

Homework, tests and cheating

Before any task, the teacher should tell the class which of three modes applies: no AI at all, AI allowed only for the steps the teacher sets, or AI built into the task itself. For anything that counts towards a mark, pupils must know the mode in advance. Using AI where it was not allowed, or handing in work a pupil cannot explain, is treated as improper use.

Where misuse is suspected, teachers should look at drafts and talk to the pupil; an automatic AI detector must never be the only or decisive evidence. The final grade must stay a human decision. The draft names no specific products; schools approve their own tools.

The draft sets no separate rule for homework. Filinto Lima, who heads the Associação Nacional de Diretores de Agrupamentos e Escolas Públicas (national association of state school heads), told DN that work done at home may need to carry less weight in marks, with more given to oral presentations.

Data, deepfakes and training

Names, grades, reports, health or family details, photos and recordings of pupils should not go into any AI tool the school has not approved. Fake images or cloned voices aimed at a classmate are to be handled as safety incidents, which may lead to disciplinary or child protection procedures. AI that reads pupils' emotions is already banned under the EU's AI Act. On teacher training, the draft only asks each school's management to identify training needs; it sets up no course or programme.

Is it binding, and how to comment

The document is national guidance rather than a law or regulation. EU law, including the AI Act and data protection rules, stays mandatory; within that, each school sets its own conditions and each teacher decides on each activity. The ministry says state and private schools may already apply it while the consultation runs.

The consultation runs for 30 days from 15 October, which takes it to around mid-November; EduQA's page gives no exact closing date. Anyone can read the draft and its support documents on EduQA's consultation page and send comments through the online form linked there, which asks for an email address. The documents are in Portuguese only. The ministry has also asked the OECD for an opinion, and the final version is due to reach schools from 4 January 2027, the start of the second term.

For immigrant families, one principle matters in particular: the draft says AI must not widen gaps of language, money or family support, a live issue when immigrant pupils already trail their classmates.