By Sridhar Rajagopalan
Education in 2023 was a journey marked by significant beginnings and essential corrections. Looking back at the year, I see four big takeaways and learnings. The elephant in the room, clearly, was AI.
Yes, products need to be built and educational institutions need to change – and both of these take time – but the writing is clearly on the wall. I say this for two reasons.
The power of AI in pattern-detection coupled with the Science of Learning, an interdisciplinary field that uses patterns of student errors and learning data to address learning challenges, can bring a paradigm shift to education systems across the globe. Good teachers have always known that student errors – more than what students get right – hold the key to improving learning – this will now get a huge boost through AI. The integration of AI into Personalised Adaptive Learning will transform learning solutions to create solutions with tailored remedial strategies, placing students at the forefront of its benefits – Personalised Adaptive Learning 2.0, if you will.
The second reason why AI’s impact will be transformational is that AI will become much more effective at relating to children and even responding to children based on their emotions. While I continue to believe that only teachers can offer the human touch, AI will become much better at demonstrating critical qualities like empathy and patience. While AI will never be able to replace the best teachers, it will both raise the bar for teachers and support these teachers even more effectively in their work.
All of this is good news for learners, especially those in remote areas or poorer neighbourhoods – they will benefit the most from the rapid democratisation of AI. It is also good news for teachers because AI can take over administrative tasks and allow them to focus on academically richer and more challenging complexities in pedagogical practices.
While these changes may be a few years away, it now seems a matter of when, not if. This makes training teachers to use AI in classrooms more important than ever. We recommend that teachers use AI tools for at least 90 minutes a week to increase familiarity. At least 30% of this should be using AI for educational tasks. Teachers should also take the initiative to attend webinars and discuss the use of AI both in and outside classrooms. Another exercise that will help in this regard, is talking about AI with students and creating an open two-way discussion on the use of AI for educational purposes.
The second big impact in India was the continued implementation of the National Education Policy and the release of the National Curriculum Framework. The NEP was announced in 2020 and its impact has been gradual but far-reaching. While neither the NEP nor its implementation has been perfect, the government deserves credit for continuing to push along all dimensions of the NEP at a rapid clip. While this has sometimes been difficult on schools and teachers – change always is – there are few questions now whether the changes the NEP talks about will actually happen.
We believe the changes in assessment patterns and the Board Exam Reforms will be the most far-reaching ones on the ground. Indian education has become too rote-based and out-of-touch with what the 21st century needs – thinking, creative individuals. Whether from the point of view of the innovation needed to build a successful 21st-century economy or the environmental awareness needed to build a sustainable planet, a changed education system is the key. The NEP and NCF strive to achieve this change and as was demonstrated in the 3rd anniversary of the NEP announcement, slow but steady progress is being made towards these goals.
This relates closely to the third big change we are seeing on the ground – assessments in schools. Again, the change has just begun, but since assessments drive how teachers teach and coaching classes coach, its impact will be dramatic. Rote learning’s stranglehold on the Indian education system has only tightened in the last few decades. Marks inflation and coaching contribute to a challenging cycle. However, there are signs of change, seen in efforts to improve Board Exam questions and release competency-based samples. Breaking the status quo is difficult, but the
CBSE’s introduction of new question types, garnering attention from coaching classes and influencers, indicates a subtle yet significant shift from traditional rote-based assessments.
The fourth big trend was another that began before 2023 – the EdTech hype cycle. After all, learning is hard for students and teaching is hard for teachers. Are aggressive sales techniques, celebrity endorsements and high-visibility sponsorships enough to create a quality EdTech solution – as the pandemic seemed to suggest? Why were educational research, the Science of Learning and impact assessment studies not a part of the vocabulary of EdTech firms valued at billions of dollars? The year showed us that quality education requires focus and effort.
India has been fortunate not to have been more directly affected by the tragic wars that have raged around the world in 2023 while both the threat and hopes of tackling climate change have very much been felt here. These are reminders that education has to reinvent itself to focus on these larger issues.
Overall, we find that in many ways, we are at a crossroads in 2023. We can see the promise – and the threat – of AI on the horizon, but we are not sure which path we will take. NEP implementation brings hope but the results are still awaited. We have been shown glimpses of what modern Board and school assessments will look like, but are still waiting for the change to happen. And while we are clearly seeing that hype is not enough to create solid learning solutions, we await the wider adoption of some of those solutions.
As always, we need to not only look ahead to 2024 to see how these turn out – we need to resolve to make them happen so our children, everywhere, can be learning with understanding.
The author is a board member of NCERT’s National Expert Group on Assessment in Elementary Education (NEGAEE). Views are personal.