New TBI paper argues a lack of clear vision and strategy for AI in schools leaves teachers struggling and increases the advantage gap.
Generation Ready: Scaling Safe, High-Quality AI in England’s Schools notes that affluent schools are already using AI to solve issues, while the state sector struggles.
Among the proposals is a “national AI teaching assistant” to offer personalised support to students and free up teacher time.
AI-powered teaching assistants should be given to every teacher to free them from admin and deliver personalised learning, according to the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
In its new paper Generation Ready: Scaling Safe, High-Quality AI in England’s Schools, TBI argues that a lack of clear vision, fragmented adoption of technology and missed opportunities for reform have resulted in exhausted teachers, inequality and a failing system.
Released as education leaders gather at the Bett Conference, the paper puts forward an ambitious plan to overhaul England’s education system.
At the heart of this plan is a call for the Department for Education to take AI in schools seriously, including through the introduction of a national AI teaching assistant for all teachers. Used properly, TBI argues, such a system could transform teachers’ workloads, freeing them from tedious and time-consuming administrative tasks while supporting personalised learning.
The AI teaching assistant would be designed to augment, not replace, teachers or in-classroom support. It could help students with tailored explanations, practice questions and revision materials, while supporting teachers with lesson planning, marking assistance and early identification of learning gaps.
The AI assistant would give teachers back time to focus on what they do best – teaching. As a result, students would be given access to learning resources and strategies tailored to them, not just a one-size-fits-all approach that leaves some pupils unchallenged and others unsupported.
The Institute warns that without a clear national strategy for managing AI in classrooms, the technology’s risks, including misuse and inequalities from uneven access, will run ahead of policymakers and school leaders.
With AI already in schools, the question is whether it will be shaped deliberately in the public interest.
TBI’s analysis and polling underline the scale of the challenge. Only 10 per cent of state secondary schools teach pupils how to use AI in subject teaching, despite the growing availability of tools. Barely half of secondary schools have reliable whole-school WiFi, making effective digital learning impossible in many settings.
Private schools, meanwhile, are surging ahead. Many already provide pupils with devices, strong connectivity and structured access to AI-enabled learning tools. Without intervention, TBI warns, this uneven adoption will hard-wire inequality into the education system, with access to the most effective learning tools limited to privileged students.
Our children also risk falling behind on the global stage, with AI tools being rolled out in classrooms internationally, such as in PISA leaders Singapore, South Korea and Estonia.
Alexander Iosad, Director of Government Innovation Policy at TBI, said:
“There are plenty of people who think children should be as far away from screens as possible, and who see AI as nothing but a danger or a way to avoid real learning. What we hear less is how transformative it can be. Teachers come into teaching to teach. Yet they are overworked, under pressure, and their attention, time and energy are too often taken away by the tedious and automatable.
“Any government serious about tackling inequality needs to be looking at the education system. It must pull every lever to close the disadvantage gap with evidence-based solutions and find and build new ones that work. Private schools are more than happy to use new, AI-powered tools for their students. It would be irresponsible to exclude the vast majority of young people in the country from safely using the same tools to transform their learning too.”
To make a national AI teaching assistant viable and fair, the Institute argues that students must have consistent access to appropriate digital devices. The paper therefore proposes allowing pupils to bring their own laptops and tablets into school to support learning alongside a government-backed loan scheme to provide devices to pupils whose families cannot afford them.
Crucially, TBI stresses that such a system must be built with strong safeguards around data protection, transparency and accountability. TBI therefore calls for an Education AI Action Plan to oversee the rollout and ongoing management of reform, setting clear expectations for how tools are deployed, how data is protected and how teachers are supported.
As the Bett Conference showcases the latest education technology, TBI argues that innovation alone will not close the gap. Without a clear strategy for AI in classrooms, and without universal access to the tools that make it effective, the benefits will accrue to a minority while the risks fall on the rest.