Teacher shortage has become a global issue in education. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), reporting on a significant project to address the problem, acknowledged that “the issue remains a serious concern”. In August 2016, the US Department of Education published a list of teacher shortage areas (TSAs) across America, which featured a comprehensive compendium of TSA listing from 1990/1991 to 2016/2017. Teacher shortage has been a subject of discussion for some time and has featured as a critical subject addressed in the “teacher shortage series” of the US Education Commission. The situation is more crucial as the report noted the lack of interest of secondary school leavers in pursuing teacher education programs and dwindling enrolment in teacher preparation programs. 

Much progress has been made in the realization of intelligent robots that can perform several functions previously thought impossible in daily human lives. Hence, in the last few years, robots have featured as co-workers with humans in factories in Japan, China, and other places; they have been reported in classrooms as companions to pupils, in healthcare as support for the disabled, critically ill, and elderly, and as diagnosis algorithms.

Designing classroom-based robotic personalities, especially those that can take on teacher roles, is, however, challenging. Several educational studies have reported the positive roles of robots in learning, including their ability to address absenteeism. In this scenario, a school in India has introduced India’s first AI teacher robot.

Meet Iris

The robot named Iris wears a saree. It is the result of a collaborative effort with Makerlabs Edutech. Iris aims to bring innovations to the field of education by offering personalized learning experiences for students. The AI teacher has been deployed at KTCT Higher Secondary School, Thiruvananthapuram.

Built under the Atal Tinkering Lab (ATL) project initiated by NITI Aayog, this AI teacher robot, Iris, boasts various features that revolutionize traditional teaching methods.

According to the developer, this AI robot has an in-built voice assistant powered by an Intel chipset. It uses an Android app interface to offer personalized learning experiences and interact with people. It is equipped with wheels and is designed to understand and speak different languages and complex problems across other subjects.

AI and education

Several tech leaders are hopeful that AI can transform the education sector. Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates believes that AI will revolutionize how people teach and learn in the future. According to Gates, chatbots will recognize users’ learning styles so they can personalize content to keep them engaged. They will also measure users’ understanding and remember what kind of motivation they respond to. 

“Intelligent machines and robots are the workforce of the future,” says Elon Musk, Silicon Valley futurist and Tesla CEO. According to him, humans are not left with any options. With automated systems in every sector, Elon further predicts the government will pay a universal wage since humans will be left with almost nothing to do.