Schools have been “burned” by edtech that has failed to deliver on “promised marvels” amid a rise in the tools available to the sector, the academies minister has said.
Baroness Barran also said that the Department for Education was thinking carefully about how artificial intelligence can narrow inequalities in education rather than exacerbating them.
Speaking today at the Conservative Party conference at an event hosted by Teach First and the think tank Onward, the minister warned that there was no “real transparency” on the impact of edtech tools.
Baroness Barran said that the DfE wanted to work with teachers and school leaders to “test out” different edtech options, starting with those that she described as a “lower risk”.
Nathan D’Laryea, assistant headteacher of Loreto High School in Manchester, who was on a discussion panel alongside the minister at the conference, said that while the use of AI in schools has been part of a conversation among his staff, there is a “vast difference” in the experience of his teachers.
And he added that whenever there is something new, an “upskilling of teachers” is needed, and while it is something the school has begun to investigate, it isn’t a focus amid the other areas such as attendance and outcomes.
Harnessing AI in schools
Asked how the DfE was thinking about the rise of AI, Baroness Barran said that one main objective being considered was how it could be used to reduce inequality in terms of economic disadvantage in schools and special educational needs and disabilities.
Speaking about the future role of the DfE with regard to edtech, Baroness Barran said that she expected the department to be a “market shaper, if not a market maker” and it was critical that the DfE understood the safety aspects of AI and edtech internationally, and also understood the impact.
“My understanding is that…we haven’t had real transparency around the impact of edtech tools and therefore I think, as a sector, there’s a sense...that people have been a bit burned by having been promised marvels from…bits of technology which may or may not have delivered it, so it’d be good to try and avoid that,” Baroness Barran said.
“I think the other areas...that will be very important in terms of either narrowing or exacerbating inequality will obviously be artificial intelligence, and how that’s used within education.”
She added: ”So we’re thinking about it a lot and I think our starting point strategically is to work out...you know, there are many, many different ways to use AI and I think in terms of the objective one that we’ve got written down internally is about reducing inequality both in terms of economic disadvantage...special educational needs and disabilities.
Attainment gap ‘at risk of widening’
Also speaking on the panel, Teach First chief executive officer Russell Hobby warned that the gains that had been made in narrowing the attainment gap over past few years were now “at risk” amid a worsening teacher recruitment and retention crisis.
And in response to a question about low physics teacher recruitment, Baroness Barran said that recruitment of physics teachers was the area that the department was “most worried about”.
Last year the government recruited less than one-fifth of its targeted number of physics teacher trainees.
