Australia's early childhood education sector is grappling with significant challenges, including a shortage of teachers and a growing crisis in teacher and student wellbeing.
With the government making childcare more affordable, demand for services has surged, placing immense pressure on a workforce already struggling to keep up. Amid these difficulties, technology – particularly AI – is emerging as a powerful ally for educators, helping to streamline workloads while supporting children with learning difficulties and trauma to thrive.
At the coalface of this transformation is Peter Kazacos, a tech entrepreneur who founded KAZ Group. Now a veteran of Australia's early childhood sector, Kazacos is leveraging his expertise through his latest venture, Kazacos AI.
Driven by a passion for education, Kazacos and his team are developing cutting-edge AI solutions that empower teachers to optimise their methods while providing engaging, interactive learning experiences for children.
Below, The Educator speaks to Kazacos about the changing role of AI in Australia’s early education sector, and how KAZ Group is leveraging AI to help young children, and those who educate them, thrive.
TE: What does Australia’s early learning sector look like in 2024, and what are some of the key challenges you see it facing?
The Australian early learning sector has a strong, caring set of childcare educators. However, the main challenge facing the sector is the demand for more educators far exceeding the supply. This is the most challenging it has been. The main reason is that the government has made it more affordable for parents to send their children to childcare and particularly for the “free” preschool assistance. While this is great news for families this has put a huge strain on resources particularly for ECTs.
TE: Can you tell us about the genesis of KAZ Group and the most powerful ways in which Kazacos AI is leveraging Artificial Intelligence to enhance both teaching and learning in the classroom?
KAZ started in 1988 focused initially on IT products and service and later evolving into business process outsourcing. It grew to become Australia’s largest Australian owned IT outsourcer (the precursor to cloud computing). The business grew to where it was listed on the ASX in 2000 and then sold to Telstra in 2004 (having a staff of over 3,000 workers). In this time horizon we saw the birth of Cloud computing and the internet. A few years ago, I saw the birth of AI and the opportunities it could bring to business and initially the education sector. We started to build products and services which focused on the needs of both preschools and primary school education. The initial focus has been on how to reduce the time required for administrative tasks, so that the educators can spend more time with the children. We are also engaged on bringing out AI assisted education for children in STEM.
TE: I understand that your Charity also focusses on using technology to help children with special needs, in particular Autism. Can you tell us more about this, and if possible, share an uplifting example for our readers?
This is an area I am extremely passionate about. I started the Your Angel Charity in Bowral with a focus on both providing support to both Children and Adults who are disadvantaged either financially, socially or mentally. Our focus on children living with Autism is based on humanoid robots that we have programmed to interact with the children. These children love interacting with technology. The results we are getting are dramatic bringing our charity workers and the school staff to tears. One example is a Year 4 boy with trauma, social, emotional and behavioural challenges, as well as dysfunctional home life, who received access to our charity humanoid robot program. Before accessing our program, the school determined this child was disengaged, highly demotivated, lacking in self-regulation, emotionally explosive and in desperate need of positive relief. Within one 30-minute session with the humanoid robot, the school observed behaviours and skills they never knew existed. Learning and support staff were moved to tears seeing his positive emotional engagement with our humanoid friend. One staff member told us they had never seen him so happy. Over the course of 10 sessions, this child consistently demonstrated positivity, joy, resilience, engagement, co-operation and self-regulation. His communication improved and he took risks by stepping outside his comfort zone with the robot – risks ordinarily avoided in the classroom. This was a huge shift for this child and one which ultimately resulted in developing resilience, improved confidence and self-esteem – and most importantly, a happier, healthier experience within his school environment.
TE: Looking ahead, what are the most important ways you see Australia’s early childhood sector evolving, and what role do you see KAZ Group and technologies like Kazacos AI playing in making sure that children, and the teachers supporting them, thrive?
It’s an old saying, but very true – “we need to work smarter not harder.” Using Kazacos AI can facilitate more targeted learning experiences for children. Educators can quickly turn a child’s initiated activity into a meaningful learning experience with the right resources readily available. The childcare industry is heavily regulated, and it needs to be as we are responsible for the children that are in our care. However, it takes time to be able to keep up with the changes in policies and procedures and to ensure that all educators are informed and understand them. Having AI tools that can do this while ensuring compliance and understanding of the policies and procedures, while making tasks quicker and more accurate is one of our goals.