EDUCATION WANTS ROBOTS AS TEACHERS

MBABANE – Are Eswatini pupils ready to be taught by robot teachers? Education and Training Minister Lady Mabuza said this is one of the dreams that the country was working towards achieving.

One robot teacher comes at a cost of about E89 000.
An education official, who was engaged on this, said robot teachers could be much better because they would not complain about health insurance, sick leave and severance packages, or leave for a better-paying job.

“All you need is a repair and upgrade every once in a while.”
This year, neighbouring South Africa is piloting a robotic curriculum that it started putting in place in 2019.
This will see computerised machines in the form of robots standing in front of pupils and imparting knowledge and assessing them at the same time.

South Africa’s Education Minister Angie Motshekga said, “It considers individual student aptitude, learning speed, background, response and other variables.
“It processes the data in real-time and provides feedback to the teacher, so that the teacher can recognise flagging student attention or poor response immediately, and take corrective actions. This will improve student participation and, in the process, the overall results.”

Motshekga reportedly pointed out that teachers are going to be key in teaching this new subject, and the plan is to train at least three teachers in each of the 16 000 primary schools to teach coding.

“The implementation of coding in the system will start with a pilot in 1 000 schools in 2020 in five provinces for Grade VII to IX,” she concluded.
The SA government has developed curricula for coding and robotics for grades R to IX.

Minister Motshekga said, “The curriculum will provide learners with an understanding of coding and robotics, and will develop their skills and competencies to prepare them for the fourth industrial revolution. The curricula will ensure our schooling system produces learners with the foundation for future work, and equip them with skills for the changing world,” the minister said.

Minister Mabuza said Eswatini would also reach a similar stage, but not anytime soon.
The minister said even though she was not proudly saying this, it was a fact that counted a lot before one could even think about robotics in schools.

Goal

She pointed out that there was a whole lot that needed to be done in order for the country to meet that goal. “As we speak, we are struggling with internet in most rural schools. Actually, I can safely say that we have not even completely embraced the third industrial revolution.”

Mabuza said the country was lagging behind even in the basic digitalisation of the education system to facilitate digitalised teaching and learning.
She said some pupils were still using chalk and blackboards, an indication that the country had not even achieved going paperless. “Otherwise we are working on it. It is even contained in our strategic planning.”

According to Motshekga, the coding curriculum will develop learners’ ability to solve problems, think critically, and work collaboratively and creatively; function in a digital and information-driven world; apply digital and ICT skills; and transfer these skills to solve everyday problems.
She added that learners would also become a new generation of creative, innovative thinkers that can use coding to express their ideas, and adopt a culture of being self-directed, life-long learners.

“This will improve student participation and, in the process, the overall results. The machine learning will be able to explain the concepts as well as set goals for individual students. Teachers will be able to track whether the students are able to digest the concepts,” the South African minister reportedly said.

It was said based on that feedback, educators could change or modify the methodology, curriculum or topics accordingly, and the result is more accurate and targeted for individuals. “In simple terms, machine learning does the analytics based on individual student data, and makes the decision-making process automatic and uniform.”
An education official said, “Children may feel less nervous talking to robots than a real person.’

Coding

The coding platform will be available in all 11 languages, ensuring rural and township children will be introduced to coding and robotics in their mother tongue, in line with government’s mission to provide an inclusive education accessible to all.

In South Korea, almost egg-shaped robots started teaching English at primary schools in 2010.
The 3.3ft high machines have a TV panel that displays a female Caucasian face and can wheel around the classroom while speaking to the students.

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