THE Government’s thrust to equip students with the requisite skills to effectively function in a world being increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence (AI) received a £1.7-million (approximately $340 million) boost from the British Council Wednesday.

“AI is already embedded in the way we live, work, and learn, from intelligent tutoring systems to automated grading. A lot of Jamaicans don’t realise where we are; we are actually much further ahead than we think and that is a big deal,” Education Minister Senator Dana Morris Dixon said at the launch of the STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics) Education in Schools Programme at AC Hotel Kingston.

“We are going to be using a lot more AI in the work we are doing. The world has changed with AI and it is changing right in front of our eyes. There are so many jobs that are no longer going to be there because of AI. This reality presents challenges and opportunities,” Morris Dixon said.

“If we fail to equip our students and teachers with skills to understand and leverage AI, we risk widening the digital divide and being left behind as a country once again. However, if we embrace AI as a tool for enhancing learning, problem solving, and innovation, we can position Jamaica as a leader in digital education and workforce readiness,” added Morris Dixon, whose portfolio includes skills, youth and information.

The funds will be spent through various entities connected to the Ministry of Education, including E-Learning Jamaica and the National Education Trust (NET).

Morris Dixon said the programme is a critical cross-agency, bilateral partnership that will impact more than 800 primary and high schools islandwide over the next three years.

The minister said she expects that through the project, more than 10,000 teachers will be trained in STEAM education, while 1,350 master STEAM teachers will be trained in online and offline courses.

“To transform our education system and Jamaica we have to transform the capacity of our teachers to deliver high-quality STEAM instructions. In terms of students we think over 328,500 students will be directly benefiting from this particular effort,” the minister said.

“I have to thank Microbit, one of the technology components of this initiative. It is very important that it be used to help our children, especially in terms of coding, and they’ll learn how to control sensors and LEDs and just really bring life to their education, which is very important; and it is also going to be fostering problem solving, creativity and computational thinking which are all very important skills,” Morris Dixon said.

Microbit is a pocket-sized programmable computer designed to promote creative thinking and teach people computer coding and digital making. Features of the device include sensors, buttons, and an LED display.

To further support the STEAM programme, Minister Morris Dixon said E-learning Jamaica will continue to outfit schools — including those with special needs students — with laptops, desktops, tablets, interactive panels, and projectors.

“It is said that our classrooms do not look the same and E-learning has done a lot of work in that. For those of you who don’t know, we have projectors in a lot of our classrooms. We do have televisions in many of them. We are also working to improve all the computer labs in the schools. One of the things I found in some schools was the students who may not be where they need to be with literacy, they are having them get priority use of the computer labs. All the technology is there and they are using technology to teach literacy,” the education minister said.

“It is no longer seen as being weak to get special classes. That transforms how you think about yourself, too. One of the things I have to commend E-learning for, and also the team at the ministry, is that the technology that is being acquired is not the cheapest. We are looking at what is best for our children and sometimes it means getting something that is a little bit more expensive,” she said.

“At the end of the day, our children deserve what is best. They deserve what a first-world student gets. They should never feel that what they are getting is less. It has to be cutting-edge, and so they are going to be continuing to do that work in equipping more schools,” Morris Dixon said.

— Billeane Williams