Page 22 - EW November 2025.pdf Final

Education News

DELHI AI & CT comes at a time when there
Running before walking initiative is a pushback against digital class-

rooms. In the West, some celebrities,
including Hollywood actor Hugh
Grant, believe that screen-obsessed
schools are ruining education and
that laptops and tablets should be
banned from schools. According to
a 2023 report of the Department for
Education in the UK, 98 percent of
teachers use technology in a wide
range of classroom activities with
laptops and tablets now available to
more than 90 percent of pupils in
primary and secondary schools.
Grant is supported by Prof.
Jonathan Haidt, author of The
Anxious Generation: How the Great
Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an
Epidemic of Mental Illness (2025).
Haidt’s book traces how “play-based
childhood” began to decline in the
AI experiential learning. Inset: Dr. Karthik Raman 1980s, and has been wiped out by
the arrival of “phone-based child-
ith the generative ai although nearly all 14-16-year-olds hood”. Haidt presents more than a
(artificial intelligence) have access to smartphones, only dozen examples of how this “great
Wboom having captured the 57 percent use them for education rewiring of childhood” has interfered
imagination of businessmen, politi- purposes, compared to 76 percent with children’s social and neurologi-
cians and educators worldwide, even for social media. Meanwhile over cal development, prompting sleep
lackadaisical bureaucrats in New half the children in classes III and V deprivation, attention fragmenta-
Delhi seem to be climbing aboard in rural India can’t read class II texts tion, addiction, loneliness, social
the fast-rolling AI bandwagon. A and solve simple multiplication and contagion, social comparison, and
new directive dated October 30 of division sums. Therefore introduc- perfectionism.
the Union ministry of education says ing class III children to AI-CT, when These apprehensions are magni-
that AI and Computational Thinking they can barely read or write, may be fied in India where the majority of
(AI & CT) will be introduced in all too big a leap of faith. government schools which grudg-
schools from class III onwards in the “It all depends on curriculum ingly host 52 percent of in-school
academic year 2026-27. design. With that caveat, I believe children, are defined by crumbling
An expert committee chaired by that children are voracious learn- buildings, ramshackle if any labs,
Dr. Karthik Raman, professor in ers and learn best experientially. If lack toilets, drinking water and often
the department of data science and the proposed curriculum includes electricity. According to the Union
AI at IIT-Madras, has been consti- interactive AI sessions and games, government’s Economic Survey
tuted to develop the curriculum in where children can tinker, they will 2024-25, 43 percent of India’s 1.47
coordination with the Central Board learn. The easiest way to kill their million schools are bereft of com-
of Secondary Education (CBSE) and interest, curiosity and our society’s puters and 46 percent don’t have
National Council for Educational future, would be to make this excit- internet access.
Research & Training (NCERT). ing initiative boring by choosing Comments Prof. Venkatesh
Although this initiative is trendy pedagogy over experiential learning,” Balasubramanian, professor in the
and contemporary, several experi- says Tanuj Bhojwani, former head department of engineering design,
enced educators believe that it’s a of People +ai, a Bengaluru-based IIT-Madras: “AI is a tool for conduct-
premature over-the-top initiative. company promoted by IT maven ing voluminous research which is not
The Annual Status of Education Re- Nandan Nilekani. required of school children. Intro-
port (ASER) 2024 published by the It’s also pertinent to note that the ducing these tools too early can have
authoritative, independent Pratham Union education ministry’s proposal an adverse impact on the cognitive
Education Foundation reports that to start teaching youngest children development of children”.

22 EDUCATIONWORLD NOVEMBER 2025