18-year-old Nitya Doshi, an IBDP board student at a Mumbai private school, is in a pickle. She can easily finish her schoolwork with the help of AI tools like ChatGPT, but she’s unsure about how to utilize AI in an ethical way.
“AI has fundamentally altered how I approach my academic work.” I now have a simple way to obtain information and get essay-writing assistance. We are unable to do so, though, as our work is plagiarized. I have trouble using AI in my assignments in an appropriate way,” Doshi explains.
The Indian educational system has not yet caught up with the advancements in generative AI. The founder of Coding and More, Supriya Bhuwalka, states that AI literacy is essential for Indian instructors as well as pupils.
Resources for AI are available in schools
The application of generative AI in education varies as well. “We do not, and will not see the actual use of AI tools like ChatGPT in the government school system,” says Gurumurthy Kasinathan, the director of IT For Change, an NGO with headquarters in Bengaluru that promotes the use of digital technology to bring about change in Indian education. Kerala is an exception, as part of the Little KITEs (Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education) Program, students are working on public AI tools. The initiative, which instructs students in the application and creation of artificial intelligence, is the subject of a study being carried out by IT for Change.
Government schools typically don’t even cover how to utilize these kinds of apps. Teachers may create multilingual learning environments that assist language acquisition by utilizing language translation tools, says Kasinathan.
Resources are also limited for private schools because the government has not mandated the use of AI in the classroom. According to Bhuwalka, schools are aware of its significance today because children will inevitably use AI.
Significance of utilizing AI ethically
It is essential to start teaching young children how to utilize these AI tools ethically. “A major problem will arise when homework is written by AI programs. Learning would be aided if students were to examine the output that artificial intelligence technologies such as ChatGPT provide and produce a meta-analysis of it, according to Kasinathan.
According to Surpiya Bhuwalka, Coding, and More is a firm that aims to spread the UNESCO-recognized AI curriculum through K–12 classrooms. It’s crucial to understand that ChatGPT and other forms of generative AI only react to data that it has been trained on, which is biased toward Western perspectives. Teaching responsible and equitable use of such data is consequently necessary.
The prospects of education in India
There is a subtext to the swift ascent of these developments: the education sector has to change in a few key areas. According to Bhuwalka, “Schools will need to change the way they look at education in the next year.” Due to the imperfections of AI tools, education in schools must also be provided. These resources ought to be able to do more in-depth research and be programmed to tailor instruction to each child.
There are some restrictions attached to these advancements, though. According to Kasinathan, “the ‘platform of education’ will pose the greatest threat to education.” Similar to how Ola and Uber dominate public transportation in many cities, Byjus has the potential to become the dominant platform in EdTech service provision spaces. Such control over the fundamental educational processes of curriculum and pedagogy will result in behaviorist learning models, teacher de-skilling, and the exploitation of households by dishonest platform marketers. This is particularly true given the stark informational disparities that exist between EdTech platforms and low-income parents. Education has a chance if proprietary platforms are regulated (China has outlawed proprietary platforms used for profit in the field of education). AI can be used to enhance teaching and expand learning opportunities.
The educational landscape has altered for a great number of kids, like Nitya Doshi, and schools must adapt to stay relevant. Since the IBDP has started allowing citations of AI tools as sources in papers, my school has been guiding us with courses on the responsible and moral usage of AI. This has shown me that AI can be a helpful tool for students if it is used as a source rather than as a way to commit plagiarism, Doshi says.
