NORTHERN IRELAND

Union president warns ‘real children need real teachers, not AI robot replacements’

Ulster Teachers' Union president Lynelle Fenton

Mark Bain

Today 

A leading union has warned the authorities not to get carried away with technology and said there can be no replacement for teachers in the classroom.

Lynelle Fenton, the president of the Ulster Teachers’ Union, told delegates at the union’s annual conference on Friday that “real children need real teachers, not AI robot replacements” as teachers debated the rise of digitisation in schools.

She said the growth of online learning and popularity of AI programmes like ChatGPT should not follow the path of the US, where teachers are already having to fight to protect their jobs.

“As long as we have real children we’ll need real teachers,” said Mrs Fenton, who is a teacher at Braidside Integrated Primary School in Ballymena.

“I don’t think people realise how far down the road we’ve come already in digitising teaching, if you regard online learning during lockdown as a huge experiment in AI.

“However, if it taught us anything, it is that children need teachers in the class with them. The social, behavioural, educational and mental health fallout we’re seeing among students in the wake of online learning is evident in every school across NI.

“During my year in office I travelled to Paris, where it was empowering to be able to share with overseas colleagues the good practice taking place in NI and, although there was much discussion around AI and digitisation in the classroom, I was able to stress the efficacy of our play-based curriculum and how central to a child’s development the interaction with teachers and students is.”

Mrs Fenton said that although increased digitisation was inevitable and had much to offer, it must be teacher-led and in the best interests of pupils and teachers.

“The US is already way ahead of us, of course, and teachers there are having to fight to ensure that human beings are being ‘kept in the loop’ when technology is being used to help create lesson plans, for instance, or making recommendations about how to help individual students grasp a concept.”

She said the role of teachers as the use of AI grows has “arguably never been more important, as AI must be teacher-led”.

“AI must know that the teacher is a pivotal part of the process of learning,” she added.

“We can’t start thinking that AI tools are more intelligent than they really are. A tool like Chat GPT doesn’t appreciate how the words it generates impact on real life.

“AI could be a force for tremendous good within education. It could release teachers from administrative tasks, giving them more time to spend with students.

“Parents also need to know all about the AI their children are encountering. Are the people behind the programmes being developed for schools actually teachers? What are their qualifications, their ethics, their experience of children?

“AI must serve us, not the other way round, so the powers that be need to ensure that the tech companies producing the software being used by schools have adequate input from teachers and are not just purely profit-driven.”

Mrs Fenton also praised new Education Minister Paul Givan, who, she said, had already made “great inroads in stabilising the profession”.

“He has a pay offer which shows respect and value for the vital work that we as teachers do,” she said, adding: “There is no time to waste in addressing the significant workload issues as well.

“In the classroom we see no change to our workload since the reviews were agreed in 2020, despite 197 joint meetings and 279 recommendations,” she continued.

“Let this be a time for real change for education and our children.”