Trick question: Can tech root out rote, bring joy into classrooms?

The promise of AI is often framed in terms of productivity, innovation and accelerated growth.

- Kashyap Kompella

Its most meaningful possibility may be simpler: a childhood restored to joy.There are a lot of stars that would have to align, for AI to take such a positive turn, but the fact that the possibility exists is, frankly, a relief.

As a parent and an educator, what excites me most is the possibility that AI could turn classrooms into places of happiness, and turn learning into an enriching experience rather than a prolonged trial.

As things stand, most children spend their most formative years in a system that blunts their distinctive edges on a daily basis and tries to force them all into the same mould. It’s a 12-year sentence of hard labour.

Our children rise at dawn and travel long distances bearing large burdens (physical and metaphorical), copy notes they barely understand (and care about less each year), return home exhausted, rote-learn or rote-draw or rote-create, and wake up to repeat the cycle all over again. For many, this becomes a life of quiet desperation, and then there is the recurring strain of tests and entrance exams.

India has spent years trying to improve its school systems.

Governments and private bodies have redesigned classrooms, reworked syllabi, toyed with the idea of elective courses and school-level internships. Some have made some progress. But too many children still sit in joyless rooms where learning is both rushed and narrow.