WA high school students warned against using artificial intelligence tools as new policies introduced

Headshot of Bethany Hiatt
Bethany HiattThe West Australian
WA’s School Curriculum and Standards Authority has updated its official policies around using AI in assessments.
Camera IconWA’s School Curriculum and Standards Authority has updated its official policies around using AI in assessments. Credit: LIONEL BONAVENTURE/AFP

WA’s Year 11 and 12 students are being warned that handing in work generated by artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT without attribution is cheating and will be penalised.

ChatGPT, a powerful chatbot which can respond to questions and produce essays within seconds, has sparked widespread debate among educators at schools and universities since its release two months ago.

WA’s School Curriculum and Standards Authority on Tuesday updated its official policies to include references to the new threat to academic integrity.

The authority’s manual on WA Certificate of Education requirements and its sample senior secondary assessment policy state that schools must have confidence when marking assessments that they are the students’ own work.

The sample assessment policy, which most schools adopt, now states that students are not permitted to hand in work as their own that has been copied or downloaded from the internet, “including artificial intelligence applications (AIA) generated responses”, without acknowledging the source.

If a student is found to have cheated, they could receive zero marks for all or part of the assessment task.