That’s the question students from Singapore, India, the US and the UK were contemplating this week in a three-hour long debate held at the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.
“Technology has not made teachers redundant and teachers are not being replaced by technology,” argued one of the debaters representing St Xavier’s Collegiate School in India. “But technology has made the task of students easier.”
However, Timothy Joseph, a student from Boston College High School, pointed out that the three international teams came from more developed nations so their arguments would obviously differ.
Students from Singapore’s NPS International School, India’s Mayo College, The Heritage School, and DPS Newtown also took part in the debate as well pupils from UK-based Model Westminster.
Eventually, the debate ended with the resolution that teachers cannot be replaced by any emerging technology and can only make better use of new medium – but was the conclusion accurate?
Just three months ago, the influential head of one of Britain's most famous public schools predicted that the most inspirational teachers of the future will actually be artificially intelligent machines.
Sir Anthony Sheldon, a former master at Wellington College, said a technical revolution will overhaul education within the next 10 years.
“Everyone can have the very best teacher and it’s completely personalised; the software you’re working with will be with you throughout your education journey,” he said. “It can move at the speed of the learner.”
Sheldon outlined his vision during a presentation at the British Science Festival and said the change would be greater than anything we’ve experienced before.
“These are adaptive machines that adapt to individuals,” he said. “They will listen to the voices of the learners, read their faces and study them in the way gifted teachers study their students.”
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