Artificial intelligence (AI) is here to stay. It’s already having a significant impact across the public sector - from helping police identify criminals to improving cancer screening in the NHS.
That’s why we are bringing the AI revolution to classroom – using it to modernise our education system, to back our teachers and deliver for our children.
Here is everything you need to know about how AI can transform education.
How could AI help teachers?
From drafting curriculum plans to producing high-quality teaching resources, AI has the potential to reduce the amount of time teachers spend doing administrative tasks, so they can focus on what they do best– teaching and supporting their pupils.
There is so much untapped potential for AI to give teachers a helping hand with classroom life. That’s why we are funding the development of brand new AI tools for education. These tools truly stretch the capabilities of what AI can do – from assessing handwritten work to giving feedback on hand-drawn geography maps and even recognising mistakes in soldering on circuit boards made by engineering students.
Time previously spent on burdensome marking and admin allows teachers to focus on face-to-face teaching.
Will teachers be replaced by AI?
Absolutely not.
Teachers are irreplaceable, and AI could never be a substitute for teachers' professional judgement and the personal relationships they have with their pupils.
We're developing AI tools specifically to support teachers, not to replace the unique role they play in education. These tools are designed to handle repetitive tasks that currently take teachers’ energy away from face to face classroom interactions.
Good teachers are key to raising standards in education. Using AI to reduce workload could also help address the recruitment and retention challenges in teaching - helping to restore teaching as an attractive profession. These tools have the potential to make a difference to the every day lives of teachers, and will help them focus on what matters, teaching.
How could AI help pupils?
Evidence shows that high quality, personalised feedback builds attainment, and AI tools can help with this. This means getting more of what makes the biggest difference to their learning - high-quality face-to-face teaching and personalised feedback.
AI tools can speed up marking and help teachers understand each pupil's progress better, so they can tailor their teaching to what each child needs. This won't replace the important relationship between pupils and teachers - it will strengthen it by giving teachers back valuable time to focus on the human side of teaching that makes all the difference to how well pupils learn.
What are you doing to develop AI in education?
From investing in AI tools, to gathering evidence about how teachers and pupils are using AI, we’re already investigating how we can take advantage of AI in education.
These are just first steps, but we have already:
- Launched the AI Tools for education competition and content store
In August 2024 we announced two exciting initiatives to stimulate the education technology sector and help build tools that will support with teacher workload.
The content store is a £3 million data library funded by the Department for Science and Technology which will be used to provide large language AI models with high quality educational information, like curriculums and mark schemes. This means AI products will be even more effective at producing resources to help teachers.
We also announced the AI Tools for education: £1 million of funding through Innovate UK’s contracts for innovation programme. This was awarded to 16 technology providers to use the information from the content store to build AI tools that will help with teacher workload across all the key stages.
- Invested up to £2 million in AI tools for Oak National Academy
This boost for Oak National Academy, a provider of free, optional, high-quality digital curriculum resources, has helped to develop and improve Oak’s AI tools. Oak National Academy has launched an AI-powered lesson assistant, Aila, to support teachers to reduce their workload. Oak has worked with expert AI developers, teachers and other education specialists to create a tool that teachers report has saved them around 3-4 hours per week in lesson planning.
How are you making sure pupils have access to the right technology?
We're investing £45 million to enhance digital connectivity in schools nationwide, specifically targeting the digital divide over the coming year. This funding includes £25 million for wireless network improvements and £20 million for fibre upgrades, ensuring reliable internet access becomes standard across all schools.
We believe that every child deserves equal access to digital learning opportunities. This investment will help ensure no pupil is disadvantaged by lack of technology access, while also supporting teachers to harness educational technology advances in their classrooms. Alongside this immediate investment, we've launched a consultation on our long-term strategy for narrowing the digital divide, with particular focus on establishing new digital and technology standards for schools and colleges across the country.