The downsides of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution that’s sweeping the world is attracting more attention than its upsides. The media is replete with gloom-and-doom predictions of conquest of the world by indestructible AI-driven robots and machines. They will enslave the genus homo sapiens which will be sentenced to work in minerals extraction sites in remote planets or reared as cuddly pets for the amusement of new age AI-driven machines. While such alarmist predictions can’t be entirely ruled out, it’s useful to recall that similar predictions were made when electricity, printing, automobiles, computers and the Internet made their debut. But all these apocalyptic predictions associated with game-changer inventions proved unwarranted. On the contrary, the relatively simple lives people led before these game-changer inventions were greatly enriched because humankind mastered and converted them to its use.
This history is about to be repeated with the widespread proliferation and impact of AI. In the near future, people won’t have to store knowledge; they will be free to focus on generating new knowledge that could well enable humankind to solve its most pressing problems — climate change, green-house gas emissions, preservation of ecology and despoilation of the Earth’s environment among other seemingly intractable problems that make life nasty and brutal for people worldwide.
In particular, the auguries of AI infusion into education are good. AI-generated programs and apps are already enabling instant assessment of children’s learning attainments and providing remedial lessons to make good their deficiencies. Simultaneously, AI advancements are taking over the routine administrative work of teachers, enabling them to devote their time to continuous professional development while teaching and mentoring children. AI in K-12 and higher education offers the exciting possibility of India’s youngest citizens — the world’s largest cohort of children and youth (500 million) — leapfrogging the wide education gap between our children and their counterparts in OECD and South-east Asian countries.
Is AI the new, miraculous technology to make this possible? Our comprehensive cover story in this issue examines this exciting possibility.
In this first issue of 2025, we also present a report on the 2nd EW-BSAI Education Leadership Retreat 2024 convened in the culturally-rich, sacred city of Varanasi between December 21-23. This EducationWorld-Boarding Schools Association of India initiative attracted 108 school promoters, principals and senior teachers from 21 cities and towns across the country.
Evidently, the country’s private school leaders are no longer content to play second fiddle to schools abroad, and aspire to raise teaching-learning standards to global standards. This represents hope of harvesting India’s much proclaimed demographic dividend.
Happy New Year to all readers! May your tribe multiply.
