The powerful messages from the AI Summit to the field of education

The recent international summit on Artificial Intelligence at Delhi has given a clarion call to the field of education. The underlying message is “AI education is not optional; but it is foundational.” The role of India in seeking a global leadership in the field of Artificial Intelligence indeed demands a re-engineered and restructured perspective to the curriculum design, a new vision of integrated pedagogy focusing on personalized learning, an assessment system that is more liberal and inclusive setting aside the classical narrations of normal distributions in a cohort.  With greater thrust and focus on creativity, it does demand generating a set of learners who are self-learners with reflective thinking and a deep understanding of the spirit of entrepreneurship. This indeed warrants a fresh focus on our understanding and approaches to school education. Educators and the institutions need to understand the following requirements.

Curriculum needs to be more sensitive, responsive, and inspirational which opens opportunities for celebrating innovative ideas and perspectives. It needs to move from classical established patterns of delivery of knowledge to a platform that facilitates the construction of new knowledge. It does not mean that the treasure of houses of past knowledge is either sidelined or marginalized, but to look at them with a new mindset. It demands to encapsulate and expand the universe of knowledge into more segments that would help its expansion, consumption and recalibration for better utility and convenience. The focus shifts to enhance the productivity of knowledge and the experiences it would offer to a more empowered living. AI could provide the much-needed magic touch to facilitate the comprehension of the universe of knowledge in a brief time and with less effort.

With the focus shifting to self-learning, the patterns of knowledge acquisition, knowledge management, and knowledge processing and navigation, the role of teachers as deliverers of knowledge might vanish. Any replay of the modus operandi of the yester years may not gravitate the attention of the learners. The classrooms could become ‘knowledge cafés’ with recipes that help with personalized learning. Blended pedagogies and those flavored with Artificial Intelligence will have a greater consumption value. Artificial Intelligence would not be a third umpire in the classroom but might be on the crease batting with every piece of data that is bowled to its crease.

The current patterns of assessment of the learners over a period of learning schedule might give way to more focused, more specific, better calibrated and instant inputs to the learners. This would help on re-engineering learning and pursuing learning ‘on the go’ rather than waiting for such feedback on a later date or time. The assessments would be largely specific and would help for a ‘feed forward’ than act as feedback. With ‘on screen assessments’ reshaping the classical ‘paper tests,’ the learning response designs and reporting patterns might force extensive use of AI in classrooms with each learner.

There is every possibility and opportunity for learning to become more universal providing equity of opportunities for learners irrespective of the geography, culture, social status, and divided opportunities. While the social systems and governance patterns would be forced to provide more resources and access to Artificial intelligence platforms globally. The impact of artificial intelligence in designing a global approach to knowledge processing, navigation and productivity would impact the thought architectures of learners globally to step into newer areas of leadership and performance. The fast and dynamic redistribution of wealth, both knowledge and as other resources, would call for repositioning the socio-emotional constructs at lesser intervals with evidence of a different cognitive and emotional behavior. The educational institutions would have to respond in a more calibrated manner to human behavior and growth dynamics.

With restructured focus on knowledge processing using the tools of Artificial Intelligence, the role of teachers becomes more critical and demanding. Teachers would have to be ‘life-long learners’ responding to the multi-dimensional and multi-faceted requirements consequent to the learning-thinking profile changes impacted by AI. Extensive focus on skill development might force ‘disruptions’ in pedagogies. “Creativity and Entrepreneurship” becoming core nutrients to all faculties of learning, teachers would be under severe pressure to establish their credibility and competence at the learning platforms. Teacher training programs would be encapsulated with more input that would force teachers to evolve with strategic pedagogies that would be suitable and engaging to personalized learning. Technology in education would become the DNA of learning for some time till we step into a more empathetic intervention that would redefine the purpose of education. The challenge lies in making “Teacher Education” more contextual, relevant, responsive to the emerging needs.

Repeatedly, the collaboration between educational institutions and the industry has been emphasized. Though some meaningful responses have come into the institutions of higher learning for collaborative thinking, it has not penetrated widely. As for the school education system, industries have kept them far away anticipating no meaningful contribution from them to their immediate future. Time is ripe to change this mindset. The last decade has witnessed significant impact of young learners to ‘thought architectures’ that would influence and impact lifestyles, social dynamics, and technological evolutions. AI is likely to bridge this gap with better and powerful AI interventions happening in the young and formative years of learning. Industry needs to be open to more engaging and active participation with school systems.

The international conference on Artificial Intelligence has brought India to the centerstage of global leadership. World is looking up to India for its significant contribution to global productivity and economy through its technology leadership. The impact of AI does not appear to be selective and conditioned, but open, inclusive, embracing, and opportunistic. It is likely to impact the economy both in India and globally. With “AI economy” bringing a better flow of investment to the country, there is a huge demand on AI empowered functionaries at all fields. Education needs to become sensitive to these needs and cater to this demand. AI education would be directly linked to the financial wealth of the country in the next decade.

The conference calls for a renewed mindset to our approach to education. Keeping the debate of ‘if-s and but-s” of AI’s impact on education, this is the most appropriate time for Indian education to accept ‘disruption’ as its existential necessity and develop a positive mindset to accept the same. Educators are left with no time either to respond or resist.