Educational leadership in the age of Artificial Intelligence

Today’s educational leaders face a dilemma. Artificial Intelligence (AI) will definitely play an enormous role in the future of their organizations and the social environment in which they operate, but what effects will it have? There are wildly different visions of the future it will create, ranging from causing the extinction of humanity to ushering in a Golden Age in which machines provide all of humanity’s needs and free us to focus on altruistic service to one another.

AI’s effect on educational institutions will not be limited merely to repetitive, routine administrative jobs. Increasingly, it will also enter the core of the teaching-learning activities of educational institutions.

It will also affect those who manage the operations and ensure the smooth running of the educational enterprises. AI likely will reshape jobs all the way up to the office of the head of the Institution. That doesn’t mean, though, that middle level managers and executives will no longer be needed. They simply need to prepare themselves for shifts in their work responsibilities.

Whether AI and the technologies it enables will reach their full potential in transforming education depends on the workforce that will work alongside them. Yet the skills that workforce needs to do this are in short supply. Rather than debating what to do about massive job losses from AI, discussion should focus on how best to prepare workers for the types of jobs that they will need to fill. Educational Leaders, including senior teachers, must make themselves ready for the emerging impact of AI on education.

Anthony Seldon in his recent book “ The fourth education revolution” has said that “ AI is the biggest challenge to education since the printing press. It can be compared to the arrival of the internal combustion engine in the 1880s, except it will change the world far more subtly and profoundly. If we can take the right decisions, we will see the biggest enhancement of human fulfilment and happiness the world has seen. Get it wrong and the quality of our life will suffer a catastrophic loss.”

Nothing matters more than education if we are to see AI liberate, not infantilise humanity.

Highly respected British educational scholar, Sir Anthony Seldon, explores the most important issue facing education (and humanity at large): the fast approaching revolution in Artificial Intelligence or AI. This book is a call to educators everywhere to open their eyes so that we can begin shaping the future of education around the world.

Britain and the US have an excellent education system in their schools and universities… but it is tailored to the twentieth century. The factory mass teaching methods of the last educational era have failed to conquer enduring problems of inequity and unfairness. Students have to make progress at a set rate which can demotivates and bore some. Will the AI revolution be able to remedy these problems?

This extended thesis explores the history of education, the many different styles of education (with a particular focus on Britain and the USA), and the different types of intelligence for which current teaching methods are unable to provide any support.

The final part of the book covers the possibilities for how we can adapt our methods to new technologies, using Sir Anthony’s innovative ten-part model of education as a framework.

It will make educators familiar with the vocabulary of the field, appreciation of the key concepts, knowledge of the tools and technologies. It enables them realistic understanding of the challenges that remain and become aware of a number of instances of applications of AI/ML in diverse industries. Armed with this knowledge, they will be ready to be the agents of change in implementing new pedagogies that deploy the power of these technologies to achieve personalisation and mastery learning for each of their students. There is a need to empower teachers who want to do so to become active users of these technologies for their benefit, rather than being passive consumers of the earlier so called EdTech. In the age of AIEd, it is the teachers who will be pivotal.

It is only when we recognize that the world is rapidly changing and so are the needs of each successive generation that we can work to ensure that education remains relevant for the future.

AI’s effect on educational institutions will not be limited merely to repetitive, routine administrative jobs. Increasingly, it will also enter the core of the teaching-learning activities of educational institutions.

It is only when we recognize that the world is rapidly changing and so are the needs of each successive generation that we can work to ensure that education remains relevant for the future.

Prof. M.M. Pant is a Ph.D. in Computational Physics and an academic with more than 50 years of post-doctoral teaching and research experience both in India and abroad. He has taught in leading Institutions in face to face, and distance and online modes including MOOCs. He is now exploring WhatsApp delivered mobile lifelong learning for future readiness as a framework that is named “Learning 321”: real learning and relevant education for the 3rd decade of the 21st century.

His past roles include being the Former Pro-Vice Chancellor, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and being on the faculty of IIT, Kanpur, MLNR Engineering College and Faculty as well as Visiting Professor, University of Western Ontario, Canada.

He has been a visiting scientist at European research centers in Italy, England, Germany and Sweden. Prof. Pant is the founder of the LMP Education Trust, an organization that supports new age learning and under privileged learners.