Denmark Mandates 'Oral Defense' Exams for High School Students to Curb AI-Assisted Homework
The Danish government has introduced urgent measures requiring upper secondary students to verbally explain written assignments completed at home, along with screen-monitoring software and firewalls to control exams, in response to escalating AI-enabled cheating
The Danish government has announced urgent measures to tackle the problem of students using AI to complete written assignments, making it impossible to verify whether the work is genuinely their own. Under the new rules, students in upper secondary schools must pass an "oral defense," meaning they have to verbally explain and defend the knowledge contained in written work submitted from home, proving they truly understand what they wrote.
The measure focuses on major written assignments completed outside of class hours, particularly the so-called større skriftlige opgave, or SSO (a large-scale curriculum-based written project), which around 9,000 students complete each year. The oral defense allows teachers to assess whether a student's understanding matches the work they submitted.
Two additional supporting measures were also introduced: requiring schools to use computer screen-monitoring tools during exams, and deploying firewalls (network-blocking systems) to control internet access both during exams and in class, reducing the chances of students accessing AI tools or unauthorized sources of information.
Magnus Heunicke, Denmark's Minister of Education, stated that the country needs to act immediately because the use of AI for homework has become a major obstacle to student assessment and learning. If left unaddressed, the education assessment system would no longer reflect students' true abilities.
The policy was reported by The Guardian and technology outlet TechRepublic, with details announced by the Danish Ministry of Education in early August. It reflects how European countries are beginning to seriously adapt their examination systems, rather than relying on AI-detection tools that remain insufficiently accurate.
This is a clear example of how education systems worldwide are changing the way they assess learning because of AI — shifting from reviewing written work to oral questioning. Thai schools and universities facing the same problem may need to adapt similar approaches in the near future.