Much of the recent interest and debate about AI in education focuses on generative AI (GenAI), which generates content in response to written prompts in a similar way to predictive text. While GenAI can produce useful content, it can also reproduce factually inaccurate information from online sources or “hallucinate” information in response to user prompts.
GenAI is of particular interest in education due to its ability to produce content which can be used by education institutions, staff and pupils.
Nine unions representing teachers, school leaders, support staff and specialists across the UK, in a joint statement, have called for educators and their unions to be involved “at every stage” of AI adoption in education.
NEU on AI in education
Recently, Demos and the National Education Union (NEU) convened a roundtable discussion on the emerging impacts of AI on children’s learning. The focus was on children’s use of AI in school and at home, on evidence of impact (or identifying where evidence is currently lacking) and on what tools or interventions are needed to ensure positive outcomes. The roundtable convened and facilitated discussion between teacher practitioners, researchers, and policy experts in the field of AI in education. This summary document presents the key points that emerged.
We want:
- Educators and their unions must have agency and input at every step of any AI adoption process: from national policy decisions, to the design and development of Edtech systems, to local decision-making and procurement, to deployment and evaluation within schools.
- AI technologies should be harnessed to give educators more professional control and agency over their working time.
- Where schools are looking to adopt AI tools, this must be preceded by risk and data protection assessments. Educational AI tools for must be used with clear guardrails to protect students from detrimental impacts to their cognitive, social and emotional development.
- Ultimately, teachers must use their professional judgement to decide how and whether to implement AI tools within their classrooms.
We do not want:
- AI tools must not be used by employers to justify the intensification of work for teachers and support staff.
- It must not lead to teachers and leaders’ work being displaced and shifted towards more routine tasks and the administration of the AI technology itself. The overall result can be to devalue teacher expertise – the loss of agency and autonomy – as well as a reduction in education quality.
- Similarly, AI tools should not be used to impose pedagogical or curriculum approaches on staff and students that limit teachers’ professional autonomy.
- AI technology should not be used as a sticking plaster for wider funding issues within our education system (such as being used to replace the work of support staff or increase pupil-to-teacher ratios). The Government and school leaders must recognise that current pressures on schools derive from a narrow and oppressive accountability system, underfunding, and a high-stakes assessment framework. AI cannot solve these underlying structural issues.