Denmark Requires Oral Defenses for Home-Written Exams in AI Cheating Package

The oral-defense rule sits within a three-part emergency package. The ministry also calls on upper-secondary schools to:

• use monitoring tools for students' screens during written exams;
• use a firewall to filter content on the school network during exams and teaching; and
• have students complete more written work at school under controlled conditions, allowing teachers to follow the process and give feedback.

The distinction between a requirement and an encouragement matters. The official announcement describes oral defenses for all home-written exams, while it frames monitoring, filtering and more on-campus work as calls to schools. It says funding for content filtering is already provided through the agreement on mobile-free schools, but identifies neither a monitoring product nor the practical rules for its use. The Danish Agency for Education and Quality is to update guidance on teaching and study time.

Together, the measures shift some assessment toward observation of how work is produced and a student's ability to account for it. They do not make a document's origin independently verifiable, and they create new operational questions for schools: how much supervised work they can add, how monitoring is governed, and how consistently oral defenses are assessed.

Denmark is joining a wider assessment experiment

The policy is not evidence that oral defenses are a uniquely Danish solution. A European Commission Joint Research Centre study of early adopters in Finland, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg and Spain found teachers and school leaders reporting greater difficulty separating students' own work from AI-generated content. It describes schools exploring project work, in-class activities and oral examinations that emphasise critical thinking, creativity and problem-solving over products more vulnerable to automation.

The study also complicates a policy framed only as restriction. Teachers and students in those countries reported using generative AI for tasks including tailored materials, feedback, practising skills, brainstorming and exam preparation, while also identifying risks of overreliance, weaker independent thinking and uneven digital readiness. Its recommended response includes AI literacy, teacher training, clearer guidance and suitable infrastructure—not assessment redesign alone.

The domestic response makes a similar demand for a longer view. A report said that Danske Gymnasier, an association representing upper-secondary schools, welcomed the emergency measures with teacher and student organisations but called for longer-term solutions amid rapid technological change. The report quoted Anders Frikke, chair of the Danish Association of Upper Secondary School Teachers, proposing declarations of AI use in major assignments and AI-free preparation for oral exams. It also quoted Oscar Tønsberg Hoffmann, chair of the Danish Upper Secondary Students' Association, saying more school-based written work should strengthen learning rather than merely relocate work from home.

The decision Denmark still has to make

The immediate policy changes the assessment evidence: students will have to explain home-written exam work as well as submit it. Whether that becomes a workable system depends on decisions the package has left pending—especially the oral-defense format, assessment criteria, capacity for supervised writing and safeguards around screen monitoring and network filtering.

Denmark's planned education-wide AI strategy is the next test. It will need to say not only when AI is forbidden, but how schools can teach responsible use, equip teachers and assess learning fairly when AI can help produce the final text.