A for AI, B for Bot, C for ChatGPT...

HE schools have reopened. Everything, from textbooks to timetables, has undergone a reset.

- PARVANA K B

There is one major change particularly noteworthy: this year, AI and robotics have officially joined the roll call.

With revamped curricula, extended academic hours, and updated textbooks, classrooms across the state are welcoming AI into their everyday schedule.

While AI has been part of engineering and technology institutions for some time, its entry into primary and secondary schools, as well as colleges, signals a larger shift in how the state is preparing its youth for a hyper-digital future. Or so it seems on the surface.

This shift aligns with a national roadmap. According to the Union IT ministry's recent report titled 'India's AI Revolution: A Roadmap to Viksit Bharat', the country will need 10 lakh skilled AI professionals by 2026.

The India AI Mission, launched in 2024, aims to build a robust ecosystem through infrastructure, foundational models, and talent development. Kerala has committed to this vision, and made headlines about it. But is it all hunky-dory? Let's find out.

K Anvar Sadath, CEO of Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE), says Kerala has been integrating AI into school education in a phased manner. "In 2023-24, AI topics were formally introduced in Class 7 and are now extended to Classes 8, 9, and 10," he says. "To support this, over 80,000 teachers across various subjects underwent AI training last year."

Through the 'Little Kites' programme, as per official data, about 60,000 Class 9 students received hands-on robotics training last year. And this year, 4.3 lakh Class 10 students will be introduced to robotics.

Some of the sample projects include building facial-recognition door locks or coding a Bluetooth-enabled car. In Class 10, there is even a task to make a robot that can detect raindrops and move to shelter on its own.