Education experts have warned that the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools may lead to a loss of human interaction in classrooms and exacerbate students’ overwhelming digital information load.
Christopher McGovern, Chairman of the Campaign for Real Education (CRE) based in London, told The Epoch Times that educators are eager to embrace new technology as a form of progress. However, they may not fully understand the implications of AI-enhanced education.
One concern is that the essential element of interpersonal interaction in the learning experience will significantly decrease with the use of AI.
“The use of AI is stripping away the human element in traditional classroom interactions between teachers and children, and among children themselves. All these humanizing elements are being taken away,” McGovern said.
McGovern, a retired headteacher who previously served as an advisor to the UK Prime Minister’s Policy Unit at 10 Downing Street, shared these views against the backdrop of the UK Department for Education exploring how to use AI to assist students in learning and support teachers in management.
The Ada Lovelace Institute, a research center in London aimed at ensuring technology benefits society, stated that artificial intelligence tools for school education are still in their infancy. Although some schools are already implementing them.
David Game College, a private school in London, is set to launch a pilot program in September using AI to teach core subjects of the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) and supervised by “learning coaches” rather than traditional teachers.
Despite the younger generation growing up in a tech-savvy world, the Ada Lovelace Institute believes that actual attitudes towards AI taking over classrooms may not be as open-minded as expected.
Based on a review conducted in January on the application of AI in education, students who participated in the UK Department for Education’s generative AI program design hackathon between 2023-2024 expressed less enthusiasm towards AI tutors. They believed these tutors lacked human touch, were prone to errors, and not as helpful as real teachers.
The institute emphasized the importance of the teacher-student relationship for educators as well as students.
Similarly, teachers invited by the UK Department for Education to test AI marking tools concept verification also expressed concerns about the potential impact of AI automated feedback on the teacher-student relationship. While automated marking can eliminate subjective bias, educators fear it may decrease students’ motivation.
“They want you to look at what they’ve written. They want you to get to know them, understand their personalities. They want to make a lasting impression on you. They want you to be interested in them as people,” a secondary school teacher provided feedback to the education department.
McGovern acknowledged that AI could be constructive in certain scenarios, matching learning tasks to students’ individual needs. However, if schools introduce AI into classrooms, they must reduce the use of other forms of technology.
The educator warned that the use of AI would fuel “massive technological overload” and could have detrimental effects on children, particularly in today’s world where smartphones and social media play significant roles in young people’s lives.
“An excess of artificial intelligence will be the problem. As we continue down the path of overusing AI, children will become more and more addicted to electronic screens,” he said. “This could further harm children’s mental health.”
While specific AI tools for education are limited, teachers are utilizing general AI products like ChatGPT for administrative tasks.
In 2023, 42% of teachers in England reported to the UK Department for Education that they were using generative AI technologies in their work, including creating learning resources and lesson planning.
The Ada Lovelace Institute pointed out that the use of general AI products itself could lead to issues, such as generating inappropriate content for different age groups or content unrelated to the curriculum. Moreover, artificial intelligence may produce “illusory” information that inaccurately presented as facts.
The UK Department for Education allows teachers to use AI to assist in preparing lessons, marking assignments, providing feedback, and creating resources. However, teachers must ensure that any AI-generated content is accurate and appropriate.
Schools can establish their own rules for AI usage, including whether students can use AI and how it should be applied, as long as they comply with relevant laws concerning data protection, child safety, and intellectual property.
The UK Department for Education has been supporting the Oak National Academy, an online hub of digital educational resources where teachers can utilize AI assistants to plan personalized lessons.
Last month, a survey of teaching assistants organized by the GMB trade union in the UK revealed that nearly a fifth of schools are using AI. Respondents expressed concerns about the potential increase in cheating and plagiarism as a result.
Student cheating is not a new issue, but educators believe that generative AI makes cheating easier, especially in unsupervised learning tasks like coursework assignments.
Tom Richmond, former director of Education and Skills (EDSK), told The Epoch Times, “Even before ChatGPT emerged, coursework assignments were recognized as an unreliable form of assessment. But now, it is clear that unsupervised learning tasks cannot be used as a fair and reliable form of learning assessment.”
Richmond emphasized that without reliable detection tools in primary and secondary schools and universities, it is impossible to ascertain how many students are exploiting AI to cheat.
He added, “No form of assessment can completely eliminate cheating, but certain forms of assessment are more difficult to cheat on compared to others.”
“The most obvious way to reduce cheating is for schools to change the types of learning tasks and assessments set for students,” he added. “At present, it is too easy for students to cheat on unsupervised learning tasks and tests at home, so schools can incorporate more assessments in classrooms to prevent cheating.”
A report released by EDSK in 2023 recommended that written exams supervised by teachers remain the primary method of assessing students’ knowledge and understanding. However, to allow children to develop and demonstrate a variety of skills, students should also engage in courses that employ different assessment methods, such as oral exams and extended projects.
Currently, the UK government has a broader strategy to promote the application of AI, including in the field of education.
This week, UK Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson announced an investment of over £1 million to pilot education technology (EdTech) in schools to improve student learning outcomes and reduce teachers’ administrative burden.
During her speech at the Education World Forum, she confirmed that the latest Content Store Project by the education department would provide AI companies with data on course guidance, teaching resources, lesson plans, and anonymous student assignments for training their AI tools to generate high-quality content for classroom use.
However, she stressed that educational technology “cannot replace excellent teachers” and that “artificial intelligence is not a magic wand.”
She also mentioned that the UK Department for Education will closely collaborate with international partners to develop global guidelines for the use of generative AI in education to form a “global consensus on safely and effectively deploying generative AI technologies to advance global education development.”
It is reported that the UK will host an international summit on generative AI in education in 2026.