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IET's response to the use of Artificial Intelligence and EdTech in Education Inquiry

The Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) welcomes the opportunity to respond to the inquiry on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and EdTech in education. 

There has rarely been a type of technology in history as fast paced as Artificial Intelligence (AI), which now permeates every aspect of our daily lives. AI is influencing how businesses, industries, and technologies operate, as well as how education is delivered, now and in the future.  AI should not be seen as something intimidating or detrimental to learning but rather be used appropriately as an aid to support teaching and learning. Policy in this area needs to go beyond considerations of automating tasks to consider basic principles of AI as a technology and how it can be used to enhance teaching fundamentals as a source of data and information.

The IET recommends:

  • Review evidence: The Department for Education should continue to review evidence and provide up to date guidance to schools on suitable use of AI, developed in partnership with experts in the field. This should focus not only on the use of AI but the education about AI as a technology. The guidance needs to be flexible but aligned with how AI is being managed across the public sector, for example, ensuring there are versions of popular AI tools that allow for age-appropriate content moderation and to ensure that students personal data is not fed into the models.
  • Procurement: The Government should continue taking a leading role in procurement of suitable AI tools across the education sector to ensure they are trained on the right data and are secure from cyber manipulation or attack. 
  • An open-source resource centre: The Government, together with teachers, students, parents and professional bodies should collaborate on an open-source resource centre for AI developers so that products can be aligned to the curriculum and trained on data suitable for the audience. Answers must be aligned to the appropriate curriculum stage in order to be of benefit to learning. Training must be easy to digest and adapt quickly to evolving technology.
  • Responsible use of AI: Education around AI should focus on broader considerations such as environmental impact and ethics, and how to use it responsibly. A short module should be developed, that is available to a broad audience including teachers, students, parents and other professions that outlines how to use AI in a positive way, as well as its limitations. This is a transferrable skill that will equip, particularly young people in education, to be agile with new technologies throughout their career later in life. 
  • Seize the opportunity to develop a workforce fit for a digital future: The workforce of the future is going to need different skills to the one yesterday, there is a significant opportunity to equip students with the ability to have an AI native workforce that can use it but also rely on their problem solving, critical thinking and decomposition, especially in computing - skills that are not easily replaced by automation.