Soon, AI tools, machine learning to augment teaching in Andhra Pradesh govt’s primary schools

The School Education Department released a government order regarding the formation of a high-level working group to equip the students of government schools with next generation education concepts and futuristic technologies.

The 13-member team comprises Principal Secretary, School Education, Praveen Prakash as the Chairman; Commissioner School Infrastructure as Convenor; and members Secretary IT, Government of AP; Commissioner School Education; State project Director, Samagra Shiksha; Director of SCERT; Ashutosh Chadha, Microsoft India; Shalini Kapoor, Amazon Web Services India; Google; Shweta Khurana, Intel Asia Pacific; NASSCOM; Jaijit Bhattacharya, President, Centre for Digital Economy Policy Research; and Dr Archana G Gulati, ex-Advisor Digital Communications, Niti Aayog.

In 2019-20, the state Government introduced English as a medium of instruction in the 45,000-odd government schools, and all students—even those in Telugu-medium schools– are learning English. While improving the English knowledge of the government school students is an essential requirement, to make them globally employable, the next important requirement is to bolster their knowledge and skill set in the next generation upcoming technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Machine learning, Large language models (LLM), Data Analytics to bringing in LLM platform tools such as Chat GPT, Web 3.0, Augmented Reality, Virtual reality, Internet of Things, Central bank Digital Currency, Autonomous vehicles, 3D-Printing, Gaming, an official said.

The School Education Department will start teaching these to primary and secondary school students after the committee makes its recommendations by July 15.

“This way, the students in government schools of Andhra Pradesh will be enabled to achieve high-end global jobs in futuristic technologies and opportunities. The committee will help to decide and work towards finalisation of the curriculum, infrastructure and resource deployment, learning content and labs requirement,’’ Reddy said. Around 41 lakh students who are in the state government’s school system will start learning AI and tools from later this year.

Introducing reforms in the education sector to make students more competent, the Andhra Pradesh government first introduced English language labs for students, especially those from Telugu medium, to learn the language while simultaneously providing them bilingual textbooks in Science, Social Studies and Maths. It also tied up with Byjus’s to provide audio visual bilingual content to strengthen the learning quality of the students, and distributed tabs with preloaded content of Byjus’s were provided to teachers and students of Class 8.

This academic year, school teaching was digitised through 30,213 Interactive Flat panels (IFP) in high schools and 10,038 smart TVs in primary schools. In the remaining classrooms the IFPs and Smart TVs will be provided by December.

The state government has also proposed to enter into an agreement with ETS (Education Testing Services) for improving English-speaking skills, and helping government school students to prepare for the TOEFL exam.