Experts discuss AI's role in education

Artificial intelligence has a big role to play in empowering the traditional education system, its concepts and pedagogy, experts and scholars said during a sub-forum of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on Friday.

Part of the Jul 9-11 conference, the Education Sub-Forum featured 27 educational experts and scholars who discussed AI's growing role in this specific sector.

According to Wang Ping, director of the Shanghai Education Commission, around 3 million teachers and students in Shanghai participated in home-based online learning at during the pandemic.

"This was not just a test of Shanghai's education informatization model but also a preview of the new online education model in a future powered by artificial intelligence," Wang said.

Wang Tao, vice-director general of QCloud and Tencent Education, shared the same sentiment, noting that the online classroom built by Tencent Education has helped 1.45 million students in primary and secondary schools overcome the physical barriers to learning during the pandemic.

The platform has also helped over 30 provincial and municipal education authorities, more than 300 million teachers and 100 million students, and launched 100 million public courses, he added.

Wang said that Tencent Education's current focus is on how the company can continue to help empower education through AI. Some of the applications for AI, he said, would include using it to help school teachers grade math homework and English compositions, determine teaching rhythm, foster greater interactivity with students and analyze reports on students' classroom performance.

The investment that the global education industry has channeled toward technology has been increasing rapidly since 2018, with virtual reality and AI receiving the most attention, according to Andreas Schleicher, director for education and skills of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Schleicher said that the education sector expenditure on virtual reality and artificial intelligence has reached $1.8 million (12.6 million yuan) and $800,000 respectively, and the figure is expected to reach $12.6 million and $6.1 million in 2025.

While AI is helpful to the development of education, Schleicher noted that technology cannot replace teachers.