Karnataka govt launches Shiksha Copilot — generative AI assistant to help teachers draw up lesson plans for students

Bangarappa said, “Government schools are often criticized for poor performance in board exams. In order to improve results, initiatives like Shiksha Copilot are integral. By automating lesson planning and resource generation, teachers can spend more time focusing on the individualized learning needs of their students. This AI-driven approach could revolutionize how government school teachers in Karnataka manage their classrooms and address the needs of the students.”

What is Shiksha Copilot

The generative AI digital assistant, that draws up lesson plans – including activities, videos and quizzes – in minutes, creates interactive learning experiences grounded in local curriculum.

Shiksha Copilot is part of Project VeLLM, a Microsoft Research India’s platform to develop specialised generative AI copilots that are accessible to everyone, from teachers to farmers and small business owners.

An official of the School Education and Literacy department said the software is built on Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and combined with the school curriculum and learning objectives. Azure Cognitive Service is used to ingest texts in textbooks, including how the content is organised. The copilot is multimodal, allowing it to include images, videos and texts, and draws publicly available videos from the internet.

The project will initially support 1,000 teachers from government schools across all education districts in urban and rural parts of Karnataka. In the coming days, the project will reach out to more teachers and schools across the state, the official said.

Prasanna VR, CEO of Sikshana Foundation, said, “The pressing need for Shiksha Copilot arises from the unique challenges faced by teachers in government schools, including the responsibility of teaching multi-grade, multi-subject classrooms with a non-homogenous group of students. These constraints often limit the time and resources available to teachers to plan personalised lessons that cater to each student’s needs.”

The tool is available for students in Classes 5 to 10 and covers subjects such as Mathematics, Science, English, and Social Science in both Kannada and English mediums.

How Shiksha Copilot works

The generative AI platform is centered around teachers’ needs by focusing on empowering teachers to generate high quality personalised content while also reducing the time to do the same.

The tool offers personalized content generation, enabling teachers to create lesson plans that are tailored to specific student needs and aligned with the 5Es model — Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate. Teachers can also develop resources like activities, real-life scenarios, videos, and assessments at both the chapter and sub-topic levels.

One of the key objectives of Shiksha Copilot is to facilitate continuous learning for educators. Teachers can access the tool via a web portal on computers or smartphones, making it a flexible resource adaptable to varied teaching environments.

Two chatbot modes are available: one that allows teachers to query the AI engine based on specific topics being taught, and another that serves as a general educational assistant. This dual-mode feature ensures that teachers not only receive support for immediate classroom needs but also have access to a resource that helps them upskill by providing information on broader educational topics.