Tech companies are under pressure to develop better AI tools to ease teachers' workload after ministers announced they would give AI models special access to the Department for Education's (DfE) resource bank.
Education Secretary Stephen Morgan said the move was a “major step forward towards introducing AI into the classroom”, as the government was spending £3 million to create a “content bank” of official assessments, curriculum guidance and teaching materials.
Many teachers say they are already using AI to help them, but current AI tools are not trained on materials specifically designed or approved for use in classrooms in England.
According to India's Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSIT), the new content bank will enable developers to train AI models to generate “accurate, high-quality content” such as workbooks and lesson plans.
Additionally, £1 million will be awarded to developers in a competition to come up with the best ideas to use the Department for Education's database to ease teachers' workload, with each winner having until March 2025 to build an AI tool to help teachers with feedback and marking.
Speaking at an international education conference in South Korea, Morgan said the initiative is the first government-approved store of high-quality educational materials optimized for AI development.
“If artificial intelligence can be made safe and trustworthy, it offers incredible opportunities for school leaders and teachers to enhance classroom life,” Morgan said.
“This investment will enable us to safely harness the power of technology to benefit our hard-working teachers, reducing the pressures and workload they face and freeing up their time so they can focus on delivering face-to-face teaching.”
A DfE study published on Wednesday found that training AI models with targeted content could improve accuracy from 67% to 92%.
Pepe Diassio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that if concerns about the trustworthiness of AI were addressed, it could ease the “overwhelming” burden facing teachers.
“However, it is important to recognise that AI is a tool and does not replace the human expertise and student interaction that can only be provided by highly skilled and specialised educational staff,” DiAsio said.
“The immediate issue is that we are struggling to recruit and retain enough teachers due to the deterioration of pay and working conditions by the previous administration over the past 15 years. This is an issue that needs to be addressed urgently.”
Chris Goodall, teacher and digital education lead at Bourne Education Trust, said they have been using AI to create lesson materials since November 2022 and are currently helping teachers in 26 schools across the trust use it to improve their lessons and reduce administrative work.
“I used AI to quickly generate step-by-step activities, adapt materials for students with special learning needs, and create more engaging lessons that are accessible to everyone. The time saved allows school staff to focus on what matters most: engaging with students and providing individualized feedback and support,” Goodall said.
A survey on attitudes towards AI in education released by the Ministry of Education and DSIT's Responsible Technology Adoption Unit found that most parents support teachers using AI in their work, but are hesitant about students interacting with it directly.
The survey noted that participants were concerned that “the loss of important social and technical skills and reduced human contact time will lead to unanticipated negative consequences.”
