Educators should adopt a trust-based system when it comes to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, whereby students understand it is their responsibility to master certain topics without cheating, an Oireachtas committee has heard.
The use of AI in Irish schools was a point of contention at this year’s teacher conferences, where concerns were raised about its impact on continuous assessment and the difficulty of keeping Government policy in line with the pace of change in the sector.
The co-ordinators of an AI in schools programme in Estonia appeared before the Oireachtas Committee on Artificial Intelligence on Thursday to tell of their experience implementing a proactive approach to the technology.
Laura Kalda of AI Leap, the programme established in Estonia to formalise AI use by second-level teachers and students, said a nationwide survey of more than 15,500 people in 2024 showed AI was already being widely used by students, but not so much by teachers.
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Up to 90 per cent of Estonian students reported using freely available AI tools for schoolwork, while only 53 per cent of teachers were doing so. This mismatch between student behaviour and school practice made it clear that Estonia needed a strategic, co-ordinated response, she said.
A pilot programme involving 20,000 students and 4,900 teachers in 154 schools was implemented at a cost of €4 million. It involved regular training sessions for teachers, where “learning communities” were set up in schools to allow teachers to reflect and collaborate on the use of AI tools in their subject areas.
The programme also worked with OpenAI, the company behind the ChatGPT tool, to develop an application specifically for Estonian students. This app is intentionally configured not to provide direct answers. It instead acts like a teacher by asking guiding questions and helping students to form their own conclusions, the committee heard.
Sinn Féin TD Darren O’Rourke asked if AI Leap had developed a verification process to ensure students’ work was their own.
“I presume they are using it to inform their own research and studies, rather than presenting it as their own work, which is a concern in Ireland,” he said.
[ ‘There will be lay-offs’: the students studying AI in DublinOpens in new window ]
Kalda said Estonia was “working towards a trust-based system” and trying to be as “open about it” as possible.
“We assume that it’s there and that everyone is using it,” she said.
“The solution we’re trying to achieve is that they [the students] will need to learn the topics that they need to learn, and they will need to present this at some point.”
Kalda added: “If you need to master a topic by some point, and basically, if you haven’t learned it, then you haven’t mastered it, then this is your own responsibility to achieve it.”
Using AI to get around this “is a form of cheating”, she said, which “has been there for whole education system”.
“This is for the teachers to decide how they approach this.”
