Artificial intelligence education technology aimed at easing pressure on teachers will launch in New South Wales classrooms this year, in one the largest rollouts of its kind globally, the state government says.
On Monday the NSW education minister, Prue Car, said NSWEduChat would be available for public school teachers by the start of term four, which starts on 14 October.
A trial shows the chat tool saves time in classrooms by helping to produce student resources, correspondence and newsletters, the government says, with some teachers reporting saving more than an hour a week.
“NSWEduChat does not replace the valuable work of our teachers, it helps them to save time, tailor their resources, and focus on their critical work in the classroom,” Car said. “The expansion of this trial to all teachers is part of our work to reduce the admin burden and get more teachers in front of our students.”
The rollout comes after the state’s education department last year banned the AI-powered ChatGPT in state schools amid concerns students were using it to cheat.
The government said NSWEduChat could only respond to questions it deemed relevant to schoolwork and would not provide a full answer – it instead asked students follow-up questions to encourage them to think critically about a topic.
The move comes amid a teacher shortage; in August Car said teaching job vacancies had dropped to fewer than 1,700 statewide.
The NSW Teachers Federation has been contacted for comment.
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