Teachers still have a crucial role to play in schools despite the rapid advance of artificial intelligence, the Minister of Education said.
Sarah Al Amiri made her comments at the Education First Forum in Abu Dhabi, where she said that while AI will be used purposefully, there can be no replacement for human interaction.
“Technology and artificial intelligence are tools we employ consciously, ensuring they do not come at the expense of independent thought or human interaction,” Ms Al Amiri said.
“No educational transformation can be achieved without a highly capable teacher. It is the teacher who transforms the curriculum into a learning experience, discovers students' talents, builds their confidence, instils values in them, and teaches them how to think, learn and relearn.
“Therefore, educational development begins with investing in teachers – in their capabilities, their professional growth pathways and the tools that empower them to perform their roles optimally.”
Senior figures from the country's education sector explained how AI will be used in the future of learning.
Prof Ahmed Ali Alraeesi, vice chancellor of United Arab Emirates University (UAEU), said the role of AI in education was being constantly re-evaluated.
“We started to have a compulsory [AI] course required by every student before graduation in all colleges,” Mr Alraeesi told The National. “We refined all academic programmes to align with the job market and global trends in order to equip our students with the needed skills. If we wait, I think we will not be able to catch the changes.”
Prof David Pedder, dean of Emirates College for Advanced Education (ECAE), which specialises in teacher training, told The National that the college prioritises AI in humancentric ways – and as a tool rather than a crutch.
“Our basic approach to using AI is as a source of personalised formative and summative feedback on learners and teachers developing ideas,” he said. “Our approaches and methodologies for integrating AI in every context of learning, teaching and leading needs to be humancentric, with the human learner at the centre of the enterprise.
At ECAE, professors are expected to use AI to lessen their load, provide input on lesson plans and give feedback to students.
“Because AI can draw on a truly global range of knowledge, it is a very rich source of ideas – a plan for a lesson, or a plan for a series of lessons,” he said.
“It is also a source for informing how these lessons and sequences of lessons are to be taught. Teachers can test out the lesson plans, get feedback and open themselves to new ideas that they hadn't thought of by themselves.”
At the forum, Prof Pedder announced the Nama'a initiative, which puts families at the heart of learning and well-being, to further this “ecosystem approach”.
“We recognise that complex educational challenges need the full range of expertise that exists in that ecosystem,” he said. “We need the expertise of strategic stakeholders and their voices – parents, children and young people, policymakers, educators in schools, teachers, leaders, educational psychologists, classroom assistants.
“The entire community needs to be mobilised to address complex educational challenges and this collaborative enterprise is really at the heart of the initiative.”
