AI and Education in India
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2 AI and Education in India Angelina Chamuah, Harsh Ghildiyal April 2020 IV Preface “After all, we make ourselves according to the ideas The utopia around Artificial Intelligence in the times of we have of our possibilities.” jobless growth presents a whole new set of challenges. V.S. Naipaul Is the Indian economy ready to ride the AI wave? Who will benefit from AI: investors, big tech, users, or There is no doubt that the technological advancement society as a whole? What is and can be India’s role in has become the game changer of our times. From this global race for innovation? Is tech gender neutral? the Industry 4.0 discourse launched in Germany in What about privacy and user protection? How to 2011 to the scientific advisory report presented to the ensure decent work and social protection in this new former US president Barrack Obama on big data and age tech revolution? But mostly, how can we turn AI privacy concerns in 2014, to India’s NITI Aayog Artificial FOR ALL into a reality? Intelligence for All strategy of 2018. A lot of debates have culminated in the questions about the Future To foster this debate, the FES India Office has teamed of Work in the context of the International Labour up with several experts and organisations across the Organisation’s Centenary in 2019. Triggered by the country to explore ground realities with the objective disruptive forces of technology based start-ups and to understand how technology is already unfolding in new business models, a new race for innovations and selected sectors, draft scenarios of what might happen war for talents has arisen and with it, a new form of and to ensure proper safeguards are put in place at the global and fierce competition. right time. Technology has become the holy grail of progress Artificial Intelligence like any other technology is though it did not take long to realise that there is a neither good nor bad. It is what we make out of it - the social dimension attached to it. The platform economy rules and regulations – which define the outcome of has had severe effects on the bargaining power of the game. Just like other countries, in India too, a mass suppliers and workers. Data analytics opened a whole scale application of AI is far from being established. It array of ethical questions regarding personal tracking is still in a nascent phase and can be moulded into a and privacy. Further, technological upgrades create success story. A success story in India AND an Indian productivity gains by efficiency which in turn requires success story for all. reduced human labour. This poses a particular threat to emerging economies, like India, which need to Patrick Ruether and Mandvi Kulshreshtha create new jobs on massive scale for its young and April 2020 growing population. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, New Delhi V Note of Thanks Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung India office is thankful to its Tandem Research’s Technology Foresight Group (TFG) partner Tandem Research for preparing this research brings together multiple stakeholders to collectively paper. Tandem Research is an interdisciplinary research and iteratively diagnose issues and challenges pertinent collective that generates policy insights at the interface to technology and society futures in India. The present of technology, society, and sustainability. FES India and paper was developed at the AI Lab held in September Tandem Research have co-organised six policy labs to 2019. The brief is based on discussions of the TFG unpack AI applications in key sectors like sustainability, but should not be seen as a consensus document — healthcare, education, agriculture and urbanity. participant views differ and this document need not reflect the views of all participants. We are grateful to our colleagues at Tandem Research for preparing the research, drafting this paper and refining the manuscript to reflect our joint vision. We have to express our appreciation to all the experts and resources persons who participated in these labs, for their constructive contribution and valuable time during the course of this research. Members of the AI for Education Technology Foresight Group Aakash Sethi is the CEO of Quest Alliance Shantanu Kumar is an advisor to multiple AI and Akshay Chaturvedi is the founder and CEO of EdTech startups and a Machine Learning Instructor at Leverage Edu GreyAtom Arpan Tulsyan is an independent research and Sreehari Rabindranath is Head of Research at M&E consultant Dream a Dream Ciber Hariharan is the co-founder of Jungroo Learning Tanay Mahindru is a Young Professional at NITI Aayog Mathura Govindarajan is a creative technologist Varun Sahni is the Vice-Chancellor of Goa University and educator Urvashi Aneja is the Founding Director of Nikita Bengani leads the product team, Quest Tandem Research Experience Labs at Quest Alliance Vikrom Mathur is the Founding Director of Nishant Baghel is a serial entrepreneur Tandem Research who works with Pratham Abishek Reddy K is a Research Fellow at Noopur Abhishek is the Team Lead, EdTech at Tandem Research Central Square Foundation Angelina Chamuah is a Research Fellow at Pandurang Kamat is the CTO, Innovations at Tandem Research Persistent Systems Anushree Gupta is a Research Associate at Sabeena Mathayas is a Technical Consultant with the Tandem Research National Skill Development Corporation Aishwarya Shridhar is a Research Associate at Sethuraman T A is the co-founder of Jungroo Learning Tandem Research VI Contents List of abbreviations ...................................................................................................................................... VII 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................................1 II. AI for education: use cases in India ........................................................................................................3 III. Challenges and risks ...............................................................................................................................6 IV. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................12 Endnotes ......................................................................................................................................................13 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................................19 VII List of abbreviations AI Artificial Intelligence NITI Aayog National Institution for Transforming India AFRS Automated facial recognition systems PAAS Platform as a service ASER Annual Status of Education Report PDP Personal Data Protection bill BITS Birla Institute of Technology and Science RTE Right to Education Act CGFSEL Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme for TCS Tata Consultancy Services Educational Loans U-DISE Unified District Information DIKSHA Digital Infrastructure for System for Education Knowledge Sharing UIDAI Unique Identification Authority EWS Economically Weaker Section of India ICTs Information and Communication UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific Technologies and Cultural Organisation ISB Indian School of Business UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund MHRD Ministry of Human Resource US United States of America Development 4IR Fourth Industrial Revolution ML Machine Learning MOOCs Massive Open Online Courses 1 Introduction 1. Introduction The education sector in India is a key site of intervention accounted for 64 per cent of the total number of higher by the state, and a policy priority for both central and education institutions and 59 per cent of enrolment in the state governments. Yet, the education sector today country, as compared to just 43 per cent and 33 per cent remains a highly fragmented space—with wide disparities respectively a decade ago.9 Concerns around the state amongst various socio-economic groups in terms of of education are also compounded by the fact that new access, differences in the quality between public and emerging technologies, under the umbrella of the so-called private education, as well as uneven outcomes between Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), are expected to create different Indian states.1 widespread changes to the future of work in India.10 While the new Economic Survey of India (2019-20) Technology, in particular digital technologies, have often indicates a measure of improvements in the field of been used as a tool to leapfrog over persistent challenges education with respect to access, infrastructure, and and service gaps in the education sector. This attempt budget expenditure in the last decade—problems still to achieve better educational outcomes by leaping over persist within the system.2 For instance, the recent Annual basic problems through technology—specially to address Status of Education Report (ASER, 2019) suggests that the issues of scale and lack of infrastructure—is not a new 40 per cent of first graders could not recognise letters phenomenon. The Indian State has been a key adopter and 59 per cent could not recognise two-digit numbers, of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) with further imbalances in the learning outcomes of for education in the past. Under the National Mission students from the public education sector as opposed to on Education through ICTs, the government aims to the private sector.3 Even in the case of higher education, create Virtual