Teachers like their students must become lifelong learners continuously picking up new skills in digital pedagogy data-driven assessment and AI-enabled personalisation
By Rajlakshmi Ghosh
timesofindia dot com
With the exponential growth of technology and especially internet access and digital learning resources teachers today are moving towards becoming facilitators of learning guiding students in navigating information critically analysing content and applying knowledge through a practical lens. The Covid 19 pandemic accelerated the shift to a digital transition to online and hybrid learning models. Teachers increasingly relied on conferencing platforms and video-based teaching. While this has ensured increased accessibility and flexibility Indian educators today face several challenges including uneven access to technology lack of adequate training lower pay packages and resource constraints.
The truth is that teachers like their students must become lifelong learners. They need to continuously pick up new skills in digital pedagogy data-driven assessment and AI-enabled personalisation. Institutions should invest in structured training and opportunities to engage directly with industry and new technologies says Ranjan Banerjee vice chancellor BITS Pilani group.
Teachers benefit when they move from being mere content adopters to collaborators and innovators. For this there is a need to embed continuous hands-on training. That could start with classroom-based workshops and evolve into internships online modules. It must include mentorship and community collaboration. Technology amplifies impact. However it does not replace the human connection.
Collaboration between schoolteachers and technology experts make education more teacher-driven and student-centric. The arc has evolved from whiteboard teaching to online learning and taking it on sheets to later converting it into computers and now using applications and even AI-powered face detection for attendance says Prof Debabrata Das director IIIT Bangalore.
Yes says M Jagadesh Kumar former chairman UGC.
The real value of a teacher lies in continuously acquiring knowledge in adapting it to the learner and in nurturing curiosity he says.
To do that Rao says despite tech disruption the relationship between the teacher and the taught will thrive. While AI can handle routine repetitive tasks the teacher imparts a human value that goes beyond exams. Books teachers and experiences are what remain when everything else goes. One complementing the other. Technology loses its singularity in an essentially pluralistic world. Till our exam system changes human intervention will persist unlike in foreign universities where they do not give a second chance to get knowledge in a subject. But even then the handholding is more says Shyama Chona former principal DPS RK Puram New Delhi.
Covid introduced other changes too in approach and learning ways. The latter can be at best a supplement to content replacing teachers says Prof Vijayalakshmi Department of Hindi and Romance Studies University of Delhi DU. One regret is the remuneration says one of the important faces of the school improvement process in India.
Education is rooted in emotional and motivational factors which the machine fails to offer says Prof Kumar.
Collaboration between teachers and technologists can aim at education on multiple fronts. AI can handle routine tasks and teachers can focus on personalised learning paths. Virtual labs and simulations can give students hands-on experiences. For students with disabilities or from marginalised sections who would never access such facilities Prof Rao says.
Across India AI readiness is however uneven not for lack of intent but for lack of structured pathways.
We need AI-readiness as a professional literacy not as luxury says Prof Kumar Chakraborty faculty of education at a university in Assam. This brings up the need for a full-scale teacher training model such as the NITTs NITs of education and SCERTs. The next five years can see teacher training and mobile-based coaching centres reach the last mile.
The AI India Mission has the potential to train thousands of youth and teachers across disciplines in local languages. To ensure quality and equity in education we must go beyond smartboards and embrace affordable accessible AI-based solutions Prof Kumar says.
India has 488 million internet users in rural areas. That means every second Indian has internet. A girl in a small village using AI-driven translation tools to ace her exams that picture is no longer distant. It can be Indias digital public infrastructure.
With encouragement from NEP 2020 scalability UDISE plus data and the proliferation of low-cost data and hardware the system is poised for transformation. We need policy support community buy-in and above all a teacher-driven change Prof Kumar adds.
But if we as society do not agree to have dignified wages for teachers if we do not make teaching a first choice of profession we risk losing out on a whole generation of change-makers says Prof Chakraborty. Much as everything else is changing AI will not define our value. The human value still needs anchoring. While it lets AI retool us it should never be allowed to replace us Prof Chakraborty adds.
POSTED BY : EDUCATION TIMES
DATE : 08/09/2025
