The BBC reports that teachers in the UK are fully and explicitly given to help with low-level tasks that are part of their duties using AI.
Guidance from the Department of Education (DFE) states that AI can be used by school teachers in the UK, but it must be for “low stakes” tasks, such as writing letters to parents or marking homework.
The decision to approve the use of the technology follows the 2023 teacher survey taken on behalf of DFE. Among them, the majority of respondents were said to be “broadly optimistic” about using AI during the course of their work. A spokesman for Teacher Taper Tap at the time, said:
Responses to the 2023 survey cited teachers who said they were extremely useful when AI needs to source appropriate educational materials and when they need to write a report to parents about their child’s performance and behavior.
As part of today’s announcement, DFE said teachers using AI can help reduce the workload of unpaid overtime teachers, leading to increased work-life balance and job satisfaction.
It is hoped that by enabling staff to use AI tools, statistics on general teacher mental health will improve (36% of teachers experience “burnout” following charitable education support (PDF), which will have the effect of attracting more graduates to the profession.
Part of the daily stress that many teachers suffer from is caused by a lack of qualified teachers. This can be useful to use AI. The UK government points out that there are more teachers employed throughout the UK than it was a decade ago, but the ratio of students to teachers continues to expand as the population grows. It is common to teach more than 33 classes in English state schools, with over 1 million students in the UK being taught in over 30 classes.
The UK’s attrition rate for qualified teachers is around 8.8%, according to SECed, an industry website aimed at teachers working in secondary schools (groups of 11-18 years olds). Seced also said the number of open positions in the sector rose from three to six per 1,000 teachers in 12 months from 2022.
Due to budget constraints for local governments and schools, open education positions are often met by short-term supply (alternative) teachers supplied through employment agencies.
In line with today’s announcement, a post from the UK government’s Education Hub Blog states that “teachers can use AI to help plan lessons, create resources, mark work, feedback, handle administrative tasks and more.” It also states that it is up to the individual teacher to ensure that everything that AI generates is accurate and appropriate. The ultimate responsibility always rests on them and their schools and universities.”
DFE also gave a seal of government approval for the use of AI by companies conducting curricula and rating reviews for UK schools. These are classifications given to schools by Ofsted (The Bureau of Standards of Education) such as “special measures”, “good”, “exceptional”. Approval of the use of AI in this context occurs despite opposition from teaching unions.
A long-term problem that has permeated the English school system for decades is not the sector’s use of technology, but its chronic lack of funding. The NAHT (National Association of Principals) says it saw an inflation-adjusted reduction in capital expenditures on schools of 29% over the course of 10 years between 2009-10-2022. The Institute for Finance says that school spending per student in the UK has reduced a realistic 9% over the same period.
Equipping teaching professionals with technology tools may help teachers teach the burden of management placed on them, whether they can consider whether they can mark homework for “low interest” in educational conditions.
Investing in school-age children in the form of increased education budgets is expensive, but subscriptions to the AI model cost around a few dollars a month. On paper, the temptation of AI to help teachers manage their workloads a little more efficiently must be attractive to DFE officials. What is clear, however, is that childhood education is consistently low value by successive British governments.
Allowing AI to support staff in criminally unfunded education sectors is largely irrelevant, and has little impact on the quality of education provided to another generation of UK children.
(Image Source: “Village School Classroom” by Thomas Galvez is licensed under CC under 2.0.))